The Tyranny of Merit: Can We Find the Common Good?

good evening everybody Dear Professor sandalia Michael dear students dear colleagues dear friends Madame de Monsieur it's really my pleasure to welcome you tonight for the opening keynote lecture of the Academic Year differentiation and integration are two defining dynamics of human life the balance though between those two Dynamics has varied significantly across time and space on the one hand we find in humanity to the need to affirm a singularity a difference and differentiation implies the affirmation of the individual on the other hand humans need to belong to connect and to conform to share in a community in the group social scientists and in particular sociologists have long explored the Dynamics that have led to a rebalancing over the last 200 years or so from Community to society in the words of ferdinandanese from organic to Mechanical solidarity to cite a mildurkheim or the great transformation as Carl polani called this movement one of the mark of modernity or even of modernities if we want to be a bit less eurocentric is the more or less rapid progress of differentiation and individualism in a given Society with in parallel the more or less significant weakening of integration and Community belonging the progress of the division of labor including in its International Dimension and of the marketization and contractualization of nearly everything of which obviously Professor sandals so aptly talked in his 2012 book what money can buy the more limits of Market I've been major carriers of this significant societal transformation towards ever increasing differentiation and individualism The Balancing Act is delicate and many social scientists including in fact the father of modern economics Adam Smith have warned us of the dangers we need to read or reread Adam Smith's theory of moral sentiments a book that he wrote well before his famous office The Wealth of Nations only then do we understand that while self-love is indeed for Adam Smith an important mortar of market dynamics self-love should be framed and tamed it tells us through another defining principle of our human nature fellow feeling and the balance between both should be moderated but by what he calls the impartial spectator a kind of hybrid in this 1759 book between the fear of God peer pressure and the legal system if that moderation is not sufficient Adam Smith tells us then society and markets will crush and crumble with a host of disastrous consequences for a mildurkheim the extreme development of differentiation and individualism in any society without in parallel the stabilization of new forms of solidarity will inexorably lead to what he calls anomi anomi can be defined as the breakdown of a collective glue of the community and social bonds that hold us together one of the many direct unmeasurable consequences of the progress of anime as durkheim scientifically showed and convincingly argued is a significant increase in rates of suicide another consequence of anomy which is being currently underscored and explored by many scientific studies is the progress of structural forms of loneliness with Associated ills emerging from this for individuals but also for societies and countries loneliness has been shown to increase psychological and physical health problems to reduce the capacity to find a job and hence to ensure economic and social integration and in your 1951 book the origins of totalitarianism the philosopher Anna ahant went even further affirming that loneliness could be at the roots of our fall into totalitarianism let me read here what is a stunningly modern text what prepares men for totalitarian domination in the non-total totalitarian world is the fact that loneliness wants a borderline experience usually suffered in certain marginal social conditions like old age has become an everyday experience the preparation has succeeded when people have lost contact with their fellow men as well as with the reality around them for together with these contacts men lose the capacity of both experience and thought structural loneliness hence era anaran tells us makes us ideal subjects of totalitarian rule some of you may be wondering where I'm going with this and what all this has to do with the keynote lecture that we are about to listen to so let me now make the connection we have the great chance today to welcome Professor Michael sandel professor in the government department at Harvard Michael sandel is one of the world's most distinguished political philosophers Madam Beth krasna president of the foundation Board of the Geneva Graduate Institute will be presenting him more fully in a minute today Professor sandal will talk from his latest book The Tyranny of Merit but the title of his talk for today makes an interesting connection between Merit on the one hand and the common good on the other so I read the title The Tyranny of Merit can we find the common good Merit is an important structuring feature of our contemporary Societies in light of my rapid introduction we can in fact also identify Merit as an important mechanism of the trend towards differentiation and therefore individualism in our modern societies therefore when does too much Merit becomes detrimental to the type of balancing after act that I've been talking about at what point do we need to bring back a focus on integration and therefore on the common good and how can we how will we be able to do this today Andrew Carnegie one of the infamous 19th century American robber barons wrote in 1889 a short text titled wealth and renamed a bit later the gospel of wealth this text soon became the road book of 20th century American philanthropy and it's still highly influential in that community in this text Andrew Carnegie identified the potentially highly disruptive consequences of a logic of Merit in the form of extreme structural inequalities and here is how he proposed to reconcile Merit and its risks with the need for integration and common good I quote their remains then only one mode of using great fortunes but in this we have the true anti-antidot for the temporary unequal distribution of wealth the reconciliation of the rich and the poor A Reign of Harmony another ideal different in differing indeed from that of the Communists in requiring only the further evolution of existing conditions not the total overthrow of our civilization it is founded upon the present most intense individualism under its way we shall have an ideal state in which the Surplus wealth of the few will become in the best sense the property of the many because administered for the common good even the pores can be made to agree that great Psalms gathered by some of their fellow citizens and spent for public purposes are more valuable to them than if scattered among them through the course of many years in tripling amounts I'm naturally convinced that Professor sandals proposal for rebalancing will be very different from Carnegie's and just like you probably I'm waiting with great expectation for the answer to the question he gave himself can we find the common good Through The Years Professor sandals many books and contributions have been lifting a veil of ignorance on some of the structuring pillars of our contemporary Society Freedom markets Justice and therefore most recently Merit is exploration of this foundational institutional pillars is at the same time a powerful commentary on our contemporary society and its seals he has built Through The Years a very important toolbox for the critical assessment of our current life and institutional choices and in the process he has made it possible to Envision and explore Alternatives and to enter the path of realist Utopia that the urgency of contemporary challenges is clearly calling for it is there for a great chance for our community to start the Academic Year with such a broad and systemic commentary on the world as it is and as it could be the kind of political philosophy that is deployed by Professor sandal is profoundly aligned with our own intellectual identity at the Geneva Graduate Institute critical thinking integrated transdisciplinarity and a constructive projection towards common good challenges and a better world before leaving the floor to Professor sandelhiver I would like now to call to the stage Madame Beth hasna president of the foundation Board of The Institute [Applause] Dear Professor sandal ladies and gentlemen it is great pleasure to welcome you to the awards ceremony of the 2022 Edgar depichoto International prize this prize was created as a tribute and a token of thanks to Mr edgarde pichoto who is brought with his family an extremely generous contribution to the realization of the Edgar and Daniel de pichoto student house that hosts students from around the world International prize awarded every two years is intended to reward an internationally renowned academic whose research has contributed to the understanding of global challenges and whose work has influenced policy makers the prize was awarded for the first time in 2012 to ameritasen 1998 winner of the Nobel Prize for economics in 2014 it was awarded to Salt freaklander Emeritus professor at the University of California Los Angeles and recipient of the 2008 pritzker prize in 2016 it was awarded to Paul Krugman winner of the 2008 Noble prize in economics and in 2018 to Joan Wallach Scott and Marita professor at The Institute for advanced studies at Princeton University in 2020 it was awarded to saskia Assassin Robert sland professor of Sociology at Columbia University for those of you who have not Googled him Professor sandal is a graduate of Brandeis University he received his Doctorate from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar he holds honorary degrees from both utrecha University and the Netherlands and Brandeis University in the U.S he has served on the president's Council on bioethics and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science his teaching career was recognized in 2008 by the American Political Science Association Dear Professor sandal you're one of the most influential modern day political philosophers a leading advocate of communitarian theory a current that emerged in the late 20th century contrary to individualistic and liberal stances you have managed to extend thinking on the subject to a global audience posing ethical questions in open public debates in which you Foster dialogue among the audience your book writings on Justice ethics democracy and markets have been translated into 27 languages you have been an influential participant in the public debate using new technology to promote Global public disclosure discourse in your BBC series the global Pro philosophers you led video linked discussions with participants from over 30 countries on the ethical aspects of issues such as immigration and climate change your Global lectures have taken you across five continents and packed venues as it as such as Saint Paul's Cathedral in London the Sydney Opera House in Australia the public theater in New York Central Park and an outdoor stadium in Seoul where 14 000 people came to hear you speak your course Justice is the force first Harvard course to be made freely available online and on television it has been viewed by tens of millions of people around the world including in China where you were named the most influential foreign figure of the year for all of these reasons we are extremely pleased to award you the 2022 Edgar depichoto International prize [Applause] [Music] [Music] gel and the floor is yours thank you thank you well thank you president krasner for those very warm words of introduction thank you director Saul for inviting me and to the foundation board for this award uh by which I'm deeply honored and thanks to all of you for coming to have a discussion about what's gone wrong with democracy in our Civic life today and what it might have to do with the way we think about success now I'm going to speak today about the tyranny of Merit which I acknowledge is a paradoxical phrase we normally think of Merit is an ideal it's an aspiration as something to aim at if I need surgery I want a well-qualified surgeon to perform it that's Merit if I'm flying in an airplane I want a well-qualified pilot at the controls so how could Merit assigning people to social roles for which they're qualified that's a good thing how could Merit become a kind of tyranny and what does all of this have to do with the state of democracy today with the clouds of danger and peril that hangover Democratic public life that's what I would like too try to diagnose and explain and see what you make of it to see how Merit can become a kind of tyranny we have to look back over the last four decades and ask what brought us to this polarized rancorous political moment for decades The Divide between winners and losers has been deepening poisoning our politics setting us apart now this has partly to do with widening inequalities of income and wealth but it's not only that it has also to do with changing attitudes towards success that have accompanied the rising inequalities those who've landed on top have come to believe that their success is their own doing the measure of their Merit and that they therefore deserve the full Bounty that the market bestows upon them and by implication that those who struggle those Left Behind must deserve their fate as well this way of thinking about success arises from a seemingly attractive principle the principle of Merit the idea that insofar as everyone starts out with an equal chance the winners deserve their winnings they've earned it this is the heart of the meritocratic ideal there are two problems with meritocracy one is that we fall short of it we don't live up to the meritocratic principles we profess not everyone has an equal chance to rise children born to poor parents tend to stay poor when they grow up affluent parents have figured out how to pass their advantages unto their kids there's a temptation to think and the Temptation is historically quite strong in the United States that we don't need to worry so much about inequality because our answer to inequality is mobility individual upward Mobility if no person is consigned to the Fate of their birth if people are free to move up and down the income scale then we often told ourselves we don't have to worry so much about inequality in Europe Americans traditionally thought they have to worry about inequality because those are class-ridden societies there isn't the same kind of Mobility but in America it's possible to rise but in fact it isn't so easy to rise in the United States in fact it's harder than in many of those countries in Old Europe today to rise social Mobility rates intergenerational social Mobility rates are not that impressive in the United States in Denmark for example the number of generations it takes for someone born into a low-income family bottom 20 percent to rise to the median income is two generations in Finland Norway and Sweden it takes three in Canada in the Netherlands it takes four generations in the United States and in Switzerland by the way it takes five it takes five so one might conclude from this that the American dream is alive and well and living in Copenhagen so that's one problem we don't live up to the meritocratic ideal but there's a further problem a deeper problem and that's this the ideal itself is flawed it's flawed for three reasons two of them are philosophical reasons moral flaws in the meritocratic ideal the third is a political failing let me first mention the philosophical flaws now one way to think about this is to use a concrete example about who gets rewarded in a meritocratic society even one that works even one where there is genuine equality of opportunity think for example think back to the to the best most inspiring teacher you had in school in fact I suspect you can probably remember the name of that teacher I can even though it's been a while can you again most of you how many can remember the name of your most influential teacher in school almost everyone now how much did that does how much did that teacher get paid or how much does a school teacher get paid today in Switzerland what would it be just call it out what is the average pay of a teacher does anybody know 120 between 80 to 120. yeah all right now think people are discussing whether that figure is accurate you think it's higher what would you say yeah yeah two hundred thousand for teaching piano in the public schools wow yeah are you the piano teacher no in Switzerland in Italy it's life all right now all right but we have the range we have the range now let's think about someone who makes a vast income we could think of Wall Street Bankers we could think of hedge fund managers but let's take let's take a highly paid athlete Roger Federer how much how much does he make in a year playing tennis and endorsing products how much do you think 20 million 50 million it was well it's around 90 million according to what I read and that was in a year recently when he was injured he didn't a lot of it comes from endorsements now here's the question thinking about what counts as valuable how many how many think that Roger Federer great inadmirable though he is how many think that he deserves to make a thousand times more than your best school teacher just by show of hands there's one uh one very enthusiastic hand went out there's a young man with a tennis racket next to him and he don't think so does that he doesn't deserve to make a thousand times more now a lot of most most people in the room think that he doesn't and if we had it'd be interesting to have a discussion about why people think that he in the majority think he doesn't um well just tell us why why you think he does I'm curious he probably changed more lives than your favorite teacher or had a bigger impact on more lives because he's so famous so many people watch him and drive inspiration from his success and but what's your name and what who was your favorite High School teacher yeah so you think that Roger Federer had a bigger impact then your Italian math teacher Alessandro great a greater teacher though he was but a thousand times more well if you're measuring how many people know of him probably more than a thousand times and it's an interesting question whether he inspired more people than School teachers do now for those of you who voted that he doesn't deserve a thousand times more as the market measure of his contribution would seem to reflect I can imagine at least a couple of reasons why you might think that well few reasons you might think he had various advantages in life his upbringing encouragement support access to training facilities and good equipment and good nutrition and not everybody in the world has access to those opportunities whether in sports or in other domains of life but the harder question comes when we ask suppose that he did because in a in a perfect meritocratic Society everyone would have a truly equal chance everyone would start the race at the same starting line with good training good coaches good preparation strong support encouragement good nutrition and the like but even in such a society in a true in a society with truly equal opportunity you might still say hey well he doesn't deserve to make a thousand times more than the teacher for the following reason if you imagine this Fair Race and you imagine social life as a Fair competition even if everyone had truly equal opportunity who would win the race the most gifted Runner which is a matter of talent and talent being a gifted athlete that's a gift now it's true Federer had to work long and hard he had to practice to cultivate his athletic gifts that's true but effort is not a sufficient condition for his great achievements I couldn't practice tennis day and night longer than Federer and never be a great I think never even be a good tennis player so even if everyone starts the race at the same starting point it's predictable that the winners will be the most gifted and so once we start to think about Talent it's hard to say that people deserve the talents with which they're endowed and because after all that's a matter of luck it's Federer's good luck yes he practiced hard but it's his good luck that he was a gifted athlete and so it's hard to say that people deserve all of the benefits that flow from talent in so far as Talent as a matter of luck there's a further reason to question whether those who make a lot of money deserve to make that much more than a school teacher not only is he fortunate to have at the great athletic gifts isn't he also fortunate to live in a society and at a time when people love tennis and also coffee makers I suppose that's not his doing either if Federer had lived back in the days of Renaissance Florence he might have been as great a tennis player as he is now but it wouldn't have gotten him all that much they didn't care about tennis back then they cared more about Fresco painters so having the talents that enable us to succeed in reaping great Market rewards and living in a society at a time when there's great demand for the talents we happen to have those neither of those is one's own doing both of those are matters of luck so the philosophical flaw the moral flaw in the meritocratic idea that people deserve the rewards they get by exercising their talents in American society is that having those talents and having them be prized is a matter of Good Fortune not our own doing but there is a further Beyond these philosophical objections there is a further objection that is broadly to do it I call it the social and political objection this has to do with the attitudes towards success that meritocratic societies promote those who wind up on top come to believe that their success is their own doing but this brings out the dark side of meritocracy this attitude it leads to what I call meritocratic hubris by meritocratic hubris I mean the tendency of the successful to inhale too deeply of their success to forget the luck and good fortune that helped them on their way to forget their indebtedness to those who make their achievements our achievements possible parents teachers coaches family neighborhoods communities countries the times in which we live the belief that we are self-making that our success is our own doing leads us to forget the role of luck in life and also our indebtedness hence meritocratic hubris now why does this matter politically it's morally unattractive this meritocratic hubris but it also deepens The Divide between winners and losers it's corrosive of the common good that's the political problem with meritocracy and this is how meritocracy even when it's fully realized can become a kind of tyranny because it's corrosive of the common good of solidarity now one way to address the Divide between winners and losers that we see in our society that we experience is to say well let's level the playing field so that everyone has a truly equal chance to become a winner but this project we should try to level the playing field but this cannot heal the inequalities of esteem that meritocracies produce because even if we could somehow achieve truly equal opportunity for everyone The Divide between winners and losers would persist the real problem lies in the image of social life as a competitive race a race in which the successful belief and have reason to believe that they have earned their success and the benefits that flow from it paradoxically the closer we come to achieving true equality of opportunity the more plausible it seems to those who succeed and to those who struggle that the winners have earned their success and so deserve its Rewards this argument the argument about the corrosive effect on social esteem in solidarity this argument against meritocracy was raised by Michael Young the British sociologist who coined the term meritocracy he did so in a in a book in 1958 called the rise of the meritocracy and although we have come to regard meritocracy as an ideal Young the writer who coined the term considered it a dystopia he warned of the hubris that a meritocracy would breed among the successful and of the demoralization that it would inflict on those who didn't rise in recent decades the meritocratic way of thinking about success has gained prominence in public discourse even as neoliberal neoliberal globalization brought widening inequality these two Tendencies are connected it is as if well let me put it this way market-driven globalization [Music] created widening inequalities but meritocratic attitudes towards success created The Divide between winners and losers it is as if the winners of globalization want more than the winnings what more could they want they want to believe that they deserve the outsized share of income and wealth that four Decades of deregulation and financialization and neoliberal economic policies have brought them Max Weber was on to this tendency of the successful a century ago he wrote the fortunate person is seldom satisfied with the fact of being fortunate Beyond this he needs to know that he has a right to his Good Fortune he wants to be convinced that he deserves it and above all that he deserves it in comparison with others he wishes to be loved the belief that the less fortunate also merely experience their do now Weber was reflecting on the religious conviction that worldly success is a sign of God's favor and that suffering is a punishment for sin but we've transposed this way of thinking which has a religious origin into secular terms into our way of interpreting Market success in largely but not entirely secular societies now how do we see this well we see it if we look at the terms of public discourse over the past four decades politicians from the center right and the center left mainstream politicians and parties responded to the widening inequalities of the age of globalization not by addressing the structural inequalities not by rethinking the economic policies that brought about these inequalities but instead by offering those who struggled embracing piece of advice and the advice was was this if you're worried about wage stagnation and job loss due to Outsourcing what you should do is improve yourself by getting a University degree what you earn will depend on what you learn this was a slogan that Bill Clinton offered time and time again you can make it if you try this was a slogan that Barack Obama articulated hundreds of times in speeches the mainstream parties and the elites who delivered this message I call it the rhetoric of rising we're offering individual upward Mobility through higher education as a response to inequality but what they failed to notice was the insult implicit in their advice the insult was this if you didn't go to university and if you're struggling in the new economy your failure must be your fault so it's no wonder that many working people turned against meritocratic Elites those of us who spend our days in the company of the credentialed can easily forget a simple fact most people don't have a University degree in the U.S nearly two-thirds do not and the figure is similar in most European countries so it's folly to create an economy that makes a University diploma a necessary condition of dignified work in a decent life Elites have during this period so valorized a University degree both as an Avenue for advancement and as a basis for social esteem they've so valorized a University degree that they have difficulty understanding the hubris a meritocracy can generate and they miss the harsh judgment it imposes on those who haven't gone to University and yet this harsh judgment is precisely what accounts for much of the anger and resentment and sense of grievance among working people grievance against Elites that fueled the populist backlash against Elites including the election of Donald Trump including the vote for brexit in the UK including the rise of right-wing populist parties inveying against Elites in many or in many European countries so this is how even a realized meritocracy generates a kind of polarization and sense of grievance that contributes to the backlash that now is threatening the future of democracy itself if I'm right in this diagnosis if meritocratic attitudes towards success have deepened the Divide between winners and losers if individual Mobility through higher education is too feeble a response to inequalities of income and wealth if the rhetoric of rising has become for many less a promise than a taunt what should we do we should begin by acknowledging that Mobility cannot compensate for inequality any and you can see why if you take the image that figures in meritocratic rhetoric of a latter meritocracy is about enabling people to compete to climb up the ladder of success so you're not stuck at the bottom if that's where you were born but what it misses and neglects is that the rungs on the ladder are growing further and further apart any serious response to the gap between the rich and the rest must therefore reckon directly with inequalities of wealth and power rather than rest content with the project of helping people scramble up a ladder even as the latter grows deeper this requires Shifting the terms of public discourse broadly speaking we should focus Less on arming people for meritocratic competition and focus more on affirming the Dignity of work we should ask what policies would ensure that those who don't have advanced degrees or fancy credentials those who don't inhabit the privileged ranks of the professional classes can find work that enables them to support a family contribute to their community and win social recognition for doing so part of the solution requires rethinking the role of higher education we've converted during this meritocratic age universities into the Arbiters of opportunity they are the institutions that confer the credentials and Define the Merit that a market-driven meritocracy Rewards but converting universities into sorting machines in trenches inequality because affluent parents have figured out how to pass their privilege onto their children not by bequeathing them vast Estates in the old days or trust funds but by equipping them to compete successfully in the meritocratic tournament that determines who gets admission to top colleges and universities it's important to broaden access to higher education to those who can't afford it but it's also important to lower the stakes of the frenzied competition to get in and this means investing more than we currently do certainly than we do in the United States in those forms of learning that most people rely on to prepare themselves for the world of work and of citizenship Switzerland and Germany do better than we do in the anglo-american world in promoting and funding and honoring vocational and Technical training and apprenticeships the failure of many of our societies to do this not only constricts Economic Opportunity for those who don't aspire to a university degree it also reflects the meritocratic priorities I would say the credentialist prejudices of those who govern because one expression of the age of meritocracy is that although 60 to 70 percent of our fellow citizens don't have a University diploma very few who don't have a diploma Now find their way to serve in the institutions of representative government nine in the United States Congress for example 95 percent of the members of the House of Representatives and all senators have University degrees over half of the Senators are lawyers and many have advanced degrees and something similar is true in European in Britain and in European parliaments the rising tide of credentialism has transformed the composition of representative government in Britain there's been a precipitous decline in the last 40 years in working-class MPS who in 1979 41 percent of Labor MPS did not have a University degree by 2017 only 16 percent did not have a University degree and if you look at the percentage of working class members of parliament as a whole only four percent in the UK in Germany France the Netherlands and Belgium representative government has also become almost exclusively The Preserve of the highly credentialed even in rich countries such as these about 70 percent of the adult population does not have a University degree but very few of them only around 12 to 15 percent in these countries find their way into Parliament this is not unprecedented but it's more than troubling more than a little troubling to notice that we've reverted to the way things were with representative government before most working people had the right to vote the highly credentialed profile of today's parliaments resembles the one that prevailed in the late 19th century when property qualifications still limited the right to vote in Germany France the Netherlands and Belgium most members of mid to late 19th century parliaments did have University degrees but then this changed in the 20th century with the Advent of universal suffrage and with the rise of socialist and Social Democratic parties from the 1920s to the 1950s MPS without University degrees served in substantial numbers accounting for one-third to one-half of legislators but beginning in the 60s and 70s this began to change and by the 2000s non-university graduates were as rare in the parliaments of Europe as they were in the days of aristocrats and the landed gentry now you might say well isn't that a good thing don't we want well-educated University graduates to govern just as I wanted you know want the well-qualified surgeon to perform my appendectomy don't we want elected representatives who attended the best universities aren't they more likely than those with less distinguished credentials to give us sound public policies and reason public discourse well no not necessarily even a cursory glance at the state of political discourse in the U.S Congress or in the parliaments of Europe should give us pause governing well requires practical wisdom and civic virtue not just technocratic expertise it requires an ability to identify with one's fellow citizens it requires an ability to deliberate about the common good and to pursue it effectively but are these capacities developed all that well in universities today I'm not so sure at best recent historical experience suggests little correlation between the capacity for political judgment which involves moral character as well as expertise little correlation between that kind of judgment and the ability to score well on standardized tests and to win admission to Elite universities the idea that the best and the brightest are better at governing than their less credentialed fellow citizens is a myth born of the same meritocratic hubris that leads the successful to believe they deserve what the market bestows upon their talents which brings us back to the failure of mainstream parties and politicians to address the rampant inequality of recent decades but that inequality is not the only problem the income gap was not the only source of grievance and anger and resentment this sense of grievance was compounded by a more Insidious injury than economic inequality alone the erosion of the Dignity of work in the social esteem connected to it by valorizing the so-called brains it takes to score well on University admissions tests the Sorting machine disparages those without meritocratic credentials it tells them that the work they do less valued by the market than the work of well-paid professionals is a lesser contribution to the common good and so less worthy of Social and recognition and esteem this is why animating the populist backlash against Elites is a sense among many working people that Elites looked down on them it's not only universities that have embedded the erosion of the Dignity of work the financialization of the economy has reinforced this demoralizing disparaging message as economic activity has shifted from making things to managing money as Society has heaped enormous rewards on hedge fund managers and Wall Street bankers the esteem accorded work work in the traditional sense has become fragile and uncertain at a time when Finance has claimed a growing share of corporate profits many who labor in the real economy producing useful goods and services have faced not only stagnant wages and on certain job prospects they've also come to feel that Society Accords less respect to the kind of work the working class does this way of thinking about who deserves what is not morally defensible but over the last several decades we've slid into the assumption that the money people make is the measure of their contribution to the common good it is as if we have outsourced our moral judgment about whose contributions really matter we've outsourced that moral judgment to markets even though as we saw from the poll we took at the beginning the Market's verdict and what counts as a valuable contribution to the common good is open to doubt so to contend with inequality and to address the polarization that afflicts our public life we need to reconsider meritocratic attitudes towards success and technocratic neoliberal conceptions of the common good now we could discuss and perhaps we will in the discussion what proposals what concrete measures we might undertake to renew the Dignity of work and to call into question the meritocratic hubris that these attitudes towards success promote but my broader point is this renewing the Dignity of work requires reclaiming from markets the the moral question of what counts as a valuable contribution to the common good reclaiming that question that judgment as Democratic citizens we need in other words to contend more directly with the moral questions underlying our economic Arrangements questions that the technocratic politics of recent decades have obscured one such question is what kinds of work are worthy of recognition and esteem another is what we owe one another as Citizens these questions are connected because we can't really discuss or determine what counts as a contribution worth affirming without reasoning together about the purposes and ends of the common life we share and we can't deliberate about common purposes and ends without a sense of belonging without seeing ourselves as members of a community to which we are indebted over the past four decades market-driven globalization and the meritocratic conception of success together have unraveled the ties the moral and Civic bonds that hold our societies together Global Supply chains Capital flows and the Cosmopolitan identities they fostered made us less reliant on our fellow citizens less grateful for the work they do and therefore less open to the claims of solidarity meritocratic sorting taught us that our success is our own doing that we are self-made and self-sufficient and this too eroded our sense of indebtedness and mutual responsibility we are now in the midst of the angry Whirlwind this unraveling has produced to renew our Civic life we must repair the social bonds that the age of Merit has undone thank you very much [Music] thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you so much Michael what a very refreshing way to start an academic year by putting on the question chair the university it's place that we are in I think this is a wonderful set of Food For Thoughts and so the common good we are looking for is solidarity this is what I'm understanding you to say this is what we are looking for yes and and so the Practical question is what social practices and what public policies in what ways of engaging in public debate can counteract these tendencies and that requires rethinking the neoliberal version of globalization that created the deepening inequality and it requires rethinking meritocratic ideas of success and what counts as a contribution worth worth valuing so we're going back to the impartial spectator that I mentioned of Adam Smith this equilibrium between fellow filling and self-love so how do we go back to unravel because what we have created is a system is an iron cage as Max Faber would have said so how do we fragilize the iron cage yeah well I think with with all due respect to Adam Smith I I'm not sure that we should think of ourselves as impartial Spectators but rather as partial embedded situated claimed selves and fellow citizens political deliberation what we need is to find a way to reason together across our differences about big questions that citizens ought to be debating such as what does it mean to seek a just Society What contributions should we honor and reward what should be the role and limits of markets in a good Society what should we do about Rising inequality what do we owe one another as fellow citizens these are Big questions of values it's as if we've lost the art of democratic public discourse our public discourse is hollowed out morally and this is partly because we've consigned so many questions about the common good and about contribution and how to Value it to markets and we've deferred as a result these fundamental Civic questions to experts and technocrats who as it turns out um often get it wrong and I think part of the anger against experts in Elites is partly to do with the the meritocratic hubris I was describing but I think it also has to do with how poorly they have governed and so the it's really a the fundamental project as I see it is to reclaim these questions for Democratic public deliberation I would have many more questions but I had a big chance of spending a half an hour with you before and asking you many questions so I think I will open up for the room and I'm sure we are going to have uh Mike's come so many many questions I can see already yeah hello uh thank you very much my name is David and it was very interesting to listen to your presentation um so you just said that we should reclaim the Democratic liberations deliberations uh to evaluate the contributions that different people have or do to our society um and reclaim them to be moral evaluations instead of maybe more financial evaluations what I ask myself is who would be doing these Democratic deliberations um in our society at the moment I guess it would be mainly the educated ones that take part in these deliberations which brings us to the same problems that you've already pointed out yeah it could also be the majority that means we're still stuck with the problem of lack of public opinion or it could be by lot which then of course also is due to luck so how would you imagine this reclaiming taking place who would be deliberating how can we discern who that would be ideally all Democratic citizens but you're right that not everyone exercises citizenship and we need to create venue with venues and forums and platforms that are inviting and accessible for all citizens if we're to rejuvenate the terms of public discourse but it isn't merely an abstract exercise I think it has to be prompted such deliberation about how to Value various social roles has to be prompted by concrete policy proposals and let me give you one small example let's take the question of Finance which occupies a greater and greater share of the economy or has come to in the last several decades and yet it's not so clear that Beyond a certain level more financial activity actually increases the productivity of the economy never mind matters of justice and fairness I mean just in terms of productivity those who study the contribution of increased Financial activity to economic productivity in the real economy have well one one such expert Adair Turner who was the head of the British Financial regulatory Authority after the financial crash crash is estimated that the productive aspect of finance investing in new productive activity new companies new factories new plant and Equipment homes roads Bridges infrastructure hospitals the productive aspect of financial activity consists of about 15 percent only of financial activity and the other 85 percent he estimates consists of essentially bets speculative gambles on the future value of already existing assets well if he's even roughly right that raises a question whether all this financial activity really does contribute to the economy to the productive economy here's a way we could frame that question politically suppose we considered a proposal to Institute a financial transactions tax on speculative Financial activity and to use the proceeds of that tax to reduce the tax on labor on work on working people not only for the sake of Shifting the burden of Taxation from to those who can better afford it that's an argument of distributive justice but also as a way of prompting public debate about the true contribution of hedge fund managers say vis-a-vis School teachers and nurses so this is the kind of concrete practical question that can prompt a bigger philosophical debate about what contributions to the economy into the common good we should really be valuing we have one question here maybe maybe we take two questions each each time because we have so many hands so you can start yeah thank you very much uh I had a question with regards to when you were talking about Merit about the quality um assumed uh in a given successful situation so for example the quality of Education when you uh receive successful admission or the quality of a working job for example um the quality of uh long paid doctors or nurses or even School teachers taking up more demand the quality that this is kind of re uh reassessed especially during the covert pandemic people were wanting to be much more rewarded and wondering how does the quality of this reassessment or this quality of the the um the expectation people are working uh retirement age they're trying to push it because they want quality of a longer life that they have to enjoy and fulfill so how does this idea play into the the finding a common good right good so I'll try to give a briefer answer than I've been all right the short answer is this the pandemic is a good example because during the pandemic those of us who had the luxury of working from home or studying from home couldn't help but notice How Deeply we depend on workers we often Overlook not only the hospital workers but delivery workers warehouse workers grocery store clerks child care workers truck drivers these are not the best paid or the most honored workers in our societies and yet during the pandemic we began describing them as essential workers as key workers so and and we applauded them sometimes you know at night but this could be the beginning could be the beginning of a broader public debate about how to bring their pay and recognition into better alignment with the importance of the work they do now whether we take that opportunity or fall back in our old assumptions that's up to us but that's that's the way in which the experience of the pandemic could prompt could prompt a a broad rethinking of social value and recognition and reward [Laughter] um yes thank you so much I've been interested in your work for a while and this issue of the meritocracy and also of opportunity hoarding um of the upper middle of the cultural and intellectual Elite um and I would just I don't I'm sure you're familiar with the work of James and Deborah fellows when they did our towns and they flew around to medium-sized small towns in the United States and talked with people about local issues and the call for the local as the elites we also we we gravitate to Elite institutions we gravitate to Elite cities to Elite locations and we lose contact with the local and I've had I dropped out of Elite Education and took 30-year Hiatus in a rural area all of my cohort from my Elite bachelor's degree are now lawyers and professors in Elite institutions they're a lot they're not happier at all and the people that I've lived with in my local rural area in France who are roofers and and Farmers they're happier people they're more fulfilled in a lot of ways and I think we lose track of that and then we find ourselves in these very competitive environments and I think James follows his work asking people political questions on the local level how does your library work how is the sewage system managed people are involved and when we're not talking about polarizing questions people work together a lot better and I think it's a just wanted to say thank you again for the work I appreciate that yeah I mean I would I I appreciate and welcome that observation about the importance of listening to not just Coastal or Metropolitan Elites but the voices of people who lead very fulfilling and meaningful lives that are not bound up with the the competitive uh exertions and strivings of the professional classes thank you for that [Music] thank you it was an honor listening to you I'm pavya I wanted to ask how would you situate this argument against meritocracy in the context of non-western democracies like India where the demography of the parliamentarians doesn't necessarily fit into this picture where they come from Elite institutions but we might be facing some of some similar problems do you think that meritocracy is is more or less intense in India than in the United States in Europe um I won't say more intense but I do think it's heading that way what about the um what about the itts do you think those are in intensely competitive meritocratic institutions the iits iits I'm sorry yes I do think the the I do think they are intensely competitive but again are parliamentarians are not coming from those institutions right and are there am I right in thinking that there are some that there are reservations and quotas in in the Indian Parliament absolutely yeah so so that's but that's uh that points to one possible response to the radically unequal representation I was describing it may not be the best response for all societies but it's one that should be considered it's not by accident that the Indian Parliament has broader occupational and class representation it's uh it's by deliberate design and political choice which suggests there may be a range of ways of trying to uh trying to achieve greater diversity in terms of class and educational background and occupational background and gender and ethnicity in Parliament and legislatures and the Indian case offers one such example thank you for that thank you thank you um so thank you very much for the presentation and um you mentioned multiple times that we should have specific policy ideas to get behind um you've mentioned how education and access to higher education should be um rethinked or how a financial transaction taxes um could be an interesting idea I was wondering if you had any other specific policy ideas that you would have concerning um well what would what would help to reinvigorate or you know the society okay apparently other ideas basically thank you for that here's one that's controversial and that hasn't gotten very far about higher education it's about admitting students to the competitive American universities and what I suggest what I propose is a lottery not a random Lottery but a lot I call it a lottery of the qualified so for example Harvard and Stanford in the United States get way more well-qualified applicants than they can possibly admit they now get about 50 000 applicants each year for about 2 000 places in the first year class a small percentage of those who apply are not qualified but quite a large percentage are very well qualified to do the work to do it well to benefit from the education to contribute to the education of their fellow students so my proposal is to winnow out those who are not qualified and would not benefit and would not be capable of doing high level University work and among the rest how many would there be I don't know maybe there would be thirty thousand or twenty five thousand or Twenty Thousand for those two thousand seats among the rest admit by Lottery well I'm so I proposed that in the book The Tyranny of Merit and I can't say that my university has embraced that proposal but there would be another example yeah that's what we do you like that idea yeah let me think about it [Applause] that's a very diplomatic answer no but I mean it does connect with quite a number of discussions about that because indeed the the selection process sometimes are we can discuss those indeed I think that there's a one question online maybe we will uh take it Laurence yes thank you and thank you Professor sandal for this presentation on a timely topic especially in this academic environment we have about 170 people online following the event and I have one question so to what extent does the extensive measurement of inequality on the meritocracy this course help avoid discussing the systematic racism that is the root cause of the current societal structure well racism is uh is right at the heart of the Injustice and the inequality that we're struggling with there's no question about that and racism is also racism and xenophobia are an important part of the political appeal of the right-wing populist figures I was referring to including Donald Trump including figures like Marine Le Pen in France the woman who's likely to win the Italian election and so on so it would be a mistake to ignore the role of racism and xenophobia in uh in animating the support for right-wing populist politicians and political parties my argument is that important to factor is racism and xenophobia are they're not the only source of the Grievances that are fueling these movements and there's a temptation by mainstream politicians and political parties to assume or to maintain that it's all about racism and xenophobia and misogyny and so on that's too comfortable because it lets those mainstream politicians off the hook for the policies they enacted that led to the inequality economic inequality and the meritocratic hubris that has been a tremendous source of the grievance against Elites that these politicians including Trump appeal to after one primary election victory in 2016 Donald Trump proclaimed what seemed to be a strange boast he said I love the poorly educated because he knew that he was drawing support from from those as he did overwhelmingly wind support of those without a university degree and the Democratic Party won the support of those with Advanced degrees and with college degrees this is a reversal from the traditional pattern of partisan allegiances but and it's true not only in the United States but also in Britain and in France where it used to be that the better educated the well-educated classes voted for the conservative parties they tended to be more affluent and they went with the conservatives and working people voted for the Democratic party back in Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and for the labor party in Britain and for the Socialist Party in France working people were the base of support but this has flipped now it's and it's flipped because of the educational divide and the way in which these center-left parties and Social Democratic parties have alienated working people so it's important to take account of that in addition to the racism and the xenophobia that fuel support for right-wing populist figures indeed in France actually Socialist Party died but that's another thing yeah we're going to take one question here good evening uh thank you very much Professor for the lecture my question is more with respect to the analytical aspect of your stances and the question is when you make the stance that universities are sort of vetting mechanisms and so on what does that add to our understanding in comparison to say the fukaldian stands that public bodies and institutions are vessels through which a social class A such control and dominance over other social classes so in terms of analytical value and forgive my skepticism can you elaborate on how that contributes to our understanding thank you you know I'm not sure that the skepticism is well placed because my emphasis on universities becoming sorting machines for a meritocratic society I see as compatible with Foucault's insight and an instance of it that has special relevance in so far as we live in a meritocratic age where uh where economic privilege and political advantage and power flow to well put it this way where the class divides that matter are increasingly defined by educational credentials so I think that my emphasis on the way in which universities have become sorting machines for a market-driven meritocratic societies entirely compatible with uh Foucault's General uh emphasis on the way in which politically strategic institutions do reflect and entrench class differences but it's worth noticing that this isn't just any uh class difference it's one that's now increasingly defined by credentials and hence my emphasis on meritocracy and meritocratic hubris so that's where I would need the lottery I guess for the last question how are we going to do this um okay I'll let you pick I have the mic you Outsource the judgment about it that's the lottery [Music] thank you very much I'm honored to have the last question it was a lottery ticket last question um so Professor I found your speech very very interesting and you so aptly pointed towards meritocracy as having such a causal impact on the breakdown on Civic discourse but a few months ago we were also honored to have a Nobel Prize when a Maria ressa come and give us a similar speech but rather than pointing to meritocracy as causing a breakdown in Civic discourse she rather pointed to the role that social media companies and algorithms were having particularly in her home country of the Philippines and I would just be very interested to hear your opinion on on that and how it seems as though social media is really even removing the preconditions for forming a public sphere in a harbor message in a sense definitely the lottery works this is a great question yeah it is a great question I I agree that social media the way it works is antithetical to the creation of the kind of public sphere that I think we need to rejuvenate democracy it reinforces the Divine the the divisions that we've been discussing I think we can't give an adequate account of how the how Society conceived as a divide between winners and losers a rose and so deeply polarized us without looking back at least four decades before social media was on the scene which is why I emphasize neoliberal globalization and meritocratic Notions of success as the two deep sources of the polarization that now casts a shadow over our Civic life but I certainly agree that if we're asking ourselves as I think we should be how can we find our way to a better morally more robust kind of public discourse than the kind to which we've become accustomed social media is an obstacle social media as it currently exists because it makes money the social media companies make money precisely by targeting news feeds and ultimately advertising in accordance with what people already think and believe and want and that's at odds with the project of creating a more robust public sphere of constituting public places in common spaces of shared Democratic citizenship where we can gather whether in person or online where we can gather to reason together and argue together about our differences social social media thrives on reinforcing and profiting from those differences rather than mediating them or creating platforms for the kind of public debate and deliberation that I think democracy today desperately requires thank you all very much thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: Geneva Graduate Institute

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Length: 91min 6sec (5466 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 27 2022