
The Tyranny of Merit
What's Become of the Common Good?
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Narrated by:
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Michael J. Sandel
About this listen
This program is read by the author.
The world-renowned philosopher and author of the best-selling Justice explores the central question of our time: What has become of the common good?
These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favor of the already fortunate. Stalled social mobility and entrenched inequality give the lie to the American credo that "you can make it if you try". The consequence is a brew of anger and frustration that has fueled populist protest and extreme polarization and led to deep distrust of both government and our fellow citizens - leaving us morally unprepared to face the profound challenges of our time.
World-renowned philosopher Michael J. Sandel argues that to overcome the crises that are upending our world, we must rethink the attitudes toward success and failure that have accompanied globalization and rising inequality. Sandel shows the hubris a meritocracy fosters among the winners and the indignities it inflicts on those left behind. And he offers an alternative way of thinking about success - more attentive to the role of luck in human affairs, more conducive to an ethic of humility and solidarity, and more affirming of the dignity of work. The Tyranny of Merit points us toward a hopeful vision of a new politics of the common good.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
"This is a remarkable book about justice. In his unique and powerful moral voice, Michael Sandel digs at the roots of our divisions, dissects the causes of inequality, and dismantles the lazy orthodoxy of those on the left and the right. Accessible and profound, The Tyranny of Merit is a revelatory assessment of pervasive unfairness in our society, driven in part by a naïve and myopic reliance on the notion of merit. In a time of easy rhetoric and thoughtless tribalism, this provocative book is a must-read for anyone who still cares about the common good. You will catch yourself wondering, again and again, 'Why have I never thought of it that way?' No good faith reader will come away from this book unchanged." (Preet Bharara, former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York and author of Doing Justice: A Prosecutor’s Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law)
"Astute, insightful, and empathetic, Sandel exposes the cruelty at the heart of some of our most beloved myths about success. A must-read for anyone struggling to understand populist resentment, and why, for many Americans, the American Dream has come to feel more like a taunt than a promise. This book is just what we need right now." (Tara Westover, author of Educated)
"The Tyranny of Merit deftly exposes the flaws and fallacies of meritocratic philosophy. In lucid, illuminating prose, Sandel makes a compelling case for uprooting inequality and building a fairer society shaped by true principles of justice. A seminal work." (Darren Walker, president, Ford Foundation)
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Critic reviews
“Astute, insightful, and empathetic, Sandel exposes the cruelty at the heart of some of our most beloved myths about success. A must-read for anyone struggling to understand populist resentment, and why, for many Americans, the American Dream has come to feel more like a taunt than a promise. This book is just what we need right now.” (Tara Westover, author of Educated)
“The Tyranny of Merit deftly exposes the flaws and fallacies of meritocratic philosophy. In lucid, illuminating prose, Sandel makes a compelling case for uprooting inequality and building a fairer society shaped by true principles of justice. A seminal work.” (Darren Walker, president, Ford Foundation)
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-
Story
Sixty percent of humanity - some four-point-three billion people - live in debilitating poverty. The standard development narrative suggests that alleviating poverty in poor countries is a matter of getting the internal policies right, combined with aid from rich countries. But anthropologist Jason Hickel argues that this approach misses the broader political forces at play. Global poverty - and the growing divide between "developing" and "developed" countries - has to do with how the global economy has been designed over the course of 500 years. Global inequality doesn't just exist; it has been created.
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eye-opening
- By Dumuzi-apsu on 03-05-19
By: Jason Hickel
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The Aristocracy of Talent
- How Meritocracy Made the Modern World
- By: Adrian Wooldridge
- Narrated by: Jonathan Cowley
- Length: 18 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Meritocracy: the idea that people should be advanced according to their talents rather than their birth. While this initially seemed like a novel concept, by the end of the twentieth century it had become the world's ruling ideology. How did this happen, and why is meritocracy now under attack from both right and left?
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Finally, an answer.
- By lll on 11-23-23
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Drug Use for Grown-Ups
- Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear
- By: Dr. Carl L. Hart
- Narrated by: Dr. Carl L. Hart
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In Drug Use for Grown-Ups, he draws on decades of research and his own personal experience to argue definitively that the criminalization and demonization of drug use - not drugs themselves - have been a tremendous scourge on America, not least in reinforcing this country's enduring structural racism. Dr. Hart did not always have this view. He came of age in one of Miami's most troubled neighborhoods at a time when many ills were being laid at the door of crack cocaine. His initial work as a researcher was aimed at proving that drug use caused bad outcomes.
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Dr Carl Hart should be our drug Czar
- By Steven Todd Gordon on 01-19-21
By: Dr. Carl L. Hart
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Bullshit Jobs
- A Theory
- By: David Graeber
- Narrated by: Christopher Ragland
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Does your job make a meaningful contribution to the world? In the spring of 2013, David Graeber asked this question in a playful, provocative essay titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs”. It went viral. After a million online views in 17 different languages, people all over the world are still debating the answer.
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Incredibly disappointing...
- By Jordan Burton on 12-21-18
By: David Graeber
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A Brief History of Equality
- By: Thomas Piketty
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The world’s leading economist of inequality presents a short but sweeping and surprisingly optimistic history of human progress toward equality despite crises, disasters, and backsliding, a perfect introduction to the ideas developed in his monumental earlier books.
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Excellent, more accessable, contribution.
- By P. Dean on 09-30-22
By: Thomas Piketty
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The Archaeology of Knowledge
- And the Discourse on Language
- By: Michel Foucault
- Narrated by: James Gillies
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Madness, sexuality, power, knowledge—are these facts of life or simply parts of speech? In a series of works of astonishing brilliance, historian Michel Foucault excavated the hidden assumptions that govern the way we live and the way we think. The Archaeology of Knowledge begins at the level of things aid and moves quickly to illuminate the connections between knowledge, language, and action in a style at once profound and personal. A summing up of Foucault's own methodological assumptions, this book is also a first step toward a genealogy of the way we live now.
By: Michel Foucault
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Building the New American Economy
- Smart, Fair, and Sustainable
- By: Jeffrey D. Sachs, Bernie Sanders - foreward
- Narrated by: Rudy Sanda
- Length: 4 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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With a nation seemingly more divided than ever, many worry that Americans risk losing ground on solving the complex, interrelated problems the country faces - including rising inequality, the specter of climate change, astronomical health care costs, and economic stagnation. The renowned economist Jeffrey D. Sachs offers a practical approach to move America toward a new consensus: sustainable development.
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If only....
- By Baboo TH on 01-24-18
By: Jeffrey D. Sachs, and others
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The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America
- By: Oren Cass
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In this groundbreaking re-evaluation of American society, economics, and public policy, Oren Cass challenges our basic assumptions about what prosperity means and where it comes from to reveal how we lost our way. The good news is that we can still turn things around - if the nation’s proverbial elites are willing to put the American worker’s interests first. Which is more important, pristine air quality, or well-paying jobs that support families? Unfettered access to the cheapest labor in the world, or renewed investment in the employment of Americans?
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Great book. Better policy recommendations
- By PeterGibbons on 02-08-19
By: Oren Cass
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Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
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Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
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Tyranny, Inc.
- How Private Power Crushed American Liberty—and What to Do About It
- By: Sohrab Ahmari
- Narrated by: Sohrab Ahmari
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Over the past two generations, U.S. leaders deregulated big business on the faith that it would yield a better economy and a freer society. But the opposite happened. Americans lost stable, well-paying jobs, Wall Street dominated industry to the detriment of the middle class and local communities, and corporations began to subject us to total surveillance, even dictating what we are, and aren’t, allowed to think. The corporate titans and mega-donors who aligned themselves with this vision knew exactly what they were getting: perfect conditions for what Sohrab Ahmari calls “private tyranny”.
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Doesn't address the whole picture
- By Penelope M on 09-18-23
By: Sohrab Ahmari
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Winners Take All
- The Elite Charade of Changing the World
- By: Anand Giridharadas
- Narrated by: Anand Giridharadas
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Former New York Times columnist Anand Giridharadas takes us into the inner sanctums of a new gilded age, where the rich and powerful fight for equality and justice any way they can--except ways that threaten the social order and their position atop it.
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Profound.
- By Amazon Customer on 10-10-18
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Recoding America
- Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better
- By: Jennifer Pahlka
- Narrated by: Jennifer Pahlka
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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A bold call to reexamine how our government operates—and sometimes fails to—from President Obama’s former deputy chief technology officer and the founder of Code for America.
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Very good, minimally partisan.
- By 95Rb35 on 11-25-23
By: Jennifer Pahlka
Interesting thesis. Monotonous reading
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I found the parts about how the financial...speculations d ok nvm"t contributors to actual growth depressing and truthful. I as ls I feel higher education has not contributed in teaching g, exposing the minds to CiVIC duty or addressing how common good is an important mor a l and ethical principle we should valye.
As I wrote I am digesting this book like another book "Evil Geniouses" which I found dovetails with this study/ st ory. I liked how the a author commented on Warren Buffett who expressed his bewilderment of Americans not enraged how whe markets were keept the growth of in c one inequality. growing.
Not the origin but movies like Wall Street ushered in the glamourization of Greed and made breaking our concept of a "Social Cintract" acceptable and in a way an essential principle "to get ahead."
I. Hope and wish we can find a way out of this messy nightmare. I understand what was said about "Credentialism" but if one doesn''t even have sense, common sense "Credentials/Degree" doesn't really help one. Can't have d I discussions if th e p series involved doesn't have common sense as a starting point.
Digesting and Massaging
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Exceptionally Well Written and Spoken
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Still worth it! And I recommend.
Worth reading it
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I’m a recently retired Local 1 Carpenter out of Chicago.
Loved this book!
Hot Dog i Won a Cookie
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So Much To Consider
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Critical work on the polarization which grips our country
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It points to how to rethink our consumerist society into one that equally honors the dignity of work and equality, the bedrock of a self governing society.
I could not put it down.
The lost profound book I have read in a log time.
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Fascinating analysis of a serious problem with our culture
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Answers will shape our future.
Highly recommending!!! 😃👏👏
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