
The populist backlash has been a revolt against the tyranny of merit - MaysonL
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/06/michael-sandel-the-populist-backlash-has-been-a-revolt-against-the-tyranny-of-merit
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j_walter
"There needs to be a redistribution of esteem as well as money, and more of it
needs to go to the millions doing work that does not require a college
degree."

I could not agree more with this statement. There are far too many people that
believe they are better than other people because of their job title,
education or wealth. Too many university educated people think that because
they have a degree that they are smarter than everyone else and their opinion
needs to be accepted as fact. I'm not sure if this is what is being taught in
universities or if this is what society is telling them...but we would all be
better off if we tried understanding other's viewpoints.

No one lives without the contributions of others anymore...no one.

~~~
sul_tasto
I’ll be interested to hear who you decide to send a portion of your paycheck
to every month.

~~~
stubish
This is called charity. It turns out voluntary charity by individuals isn't
enough to redistribute enough worth from the wealthy minority to the poor
majority. Charity as a system is only really capable of keeping the poor
majority from rebelling. To make it work, sending a portion of your paycheck
every month needs to be mandated, and we call that taxation.

~~~
sul_tasto
I always thought taxation should be for services that benefit the common good:
utilities, first responder services, roads, food safety, etc. Are we being
taxed as a way to prevent an uprising against the 1%?

~~~
harimau777
One of society's purposes is also to ensure that all of its members are
provided for. That's basically the exchange: contribute to society and society
will make sure that your needs are met.

Therefore, I would say that taking a portion from those who have an excess and
giving it to those who do not have enough is within the legitimate role of
society.

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juped
Much of it is a backlash against the conflation of anointment by organs of
prestige with "merit"; at best, these prestige organs are very noisy proxies
for some form of merit, and they get worse by the day.

(The article says as much, of course.)

~~~
Viliam1234
Educated people usually underestimate how much "having a university diploma"
correlates with social class more than with being smart and diligent.

For example, in my country, university education is free, but it still means
your parents need to pay for your food, travel, and accommodation. Guess what,
poor people can't afford that; they need to start making money when they are
18. On the other hand, for relatively stupid people from middle class
families, there are safe choices of a university where they will probably
succeed. -- And I don't think any of this is difficult to understand. Yet
people around me insist that having a university diploma is a measure of
intelligence and hard work.

(It is especially ironic with the politically correct ones. What is your
opinion about people who treat poor minorities with contempt? Absolutely
reprehensible! Oh, and what is your opinion about people who don't have a
university education? Lazy losers, they deserve what they got! Hey, and you do
realize that most members of the poor minorities actually don't have a
university education, so you do in fact treat them with contempt? Uhm, that's
completely different! Yeah, I am pretty sure they will be happy to hear that
the reason they can't get a good job is not the circumstances of their birth,
but rather the predictable consequences of the circumstances of their birth.)

------
mas3god
The rise of populism is probably because nobody trusts established
politicians, not some abstract reasoning around the left being meritorious.

------
exidy
Some of the HN crowd might be familiar with the academic Freddie deBoer, who
just recently published a book on this very topic with some suggestions of how
to address it, _The Cult of Smart_[1]

[1]
[https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250200389](https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250200389)

------
8bitsrule
The definition of "success" has been very narrowly construed, if it has
measured against mere tangibles.

------
ericmay
Highly, highly recommend The Meritocracy Trap by Daniel Markovitz [1]

[1] [https://www.themeritocracytrap.com/](https://www.themeritocracytrap.com/)

------
rbecker
I was surprised he did not address the issues of loyalty and betrayal. To whom
does the state owe its loyalty? To its own citizens first, or to everyone
(i.e. no-one)? It's no surprise people feel betrayed when the countries they
and their ancestors helped build offer them no more than a level playing field
on which they are to compete against the world. A world that seldom
reciprocates those open and individualist attitudes, as it has not forgotten
"united we stand, divided we fall".

Of course this does not apply so much to major corporations, but that is a
different matter.

~~~
Nthgenimmigrant
I find it funny how the ancestry logic (presumably European) sounds so alien
to US ears. Our majority isn't 30th-generation immigrants.

But what claim does ancestry truly offer? If my parents are from the UK, do I
qualify for Super Citizenship there? What if those parents had only been UK
citizens for 2 generations? What if it's my great-grandparents, but they were
part of a lineage that spent 22 generations "building" the UK, surely an
absence of only 3 generations is just a rounding error!

~~~
rbecker
You try to paint this as some ridiculous hypothetical proposition, but it's
the status quo in most of the world. What are you even trying to say? Because
there are ambiguous edge cases, countries shouldn't look after their own
citizens first at all?

And US immigration policy favored Europeans, based exactly on shared ancestry,
all the way up to the Hart-Celler Act of 1965. So for most of its history,
this logic didn't sound alien to US ears at all, despite being a young
country. It has abandoned it only relatively recently, paradoxically as it got
older. In fact, with how often the US is _still_ accused of xenophobia
(despite immigration policies that will see its former 90% majority become a
minority in a mere 24 years), I find it puzzling how you can make that
statement in the first place.

As for your question about your grandparents, many countries do indeed
recognize a right of return, but the UK is not among them, so you're out of
luck:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return)

