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Quotes from The Tyranny of Merits — Michael Sandel

born 1953 United States

← All quotes by Michael Sandel

3 quotes

Meritocratic hubris reflects the tendency of winners to inhale too deeply of their success, to forget the luck and good fortune that helped them on their way. It is the smug conviction of those who land on top that they deserve their fate, and that those on the bottom deserve theirs, too. This attitude is the moral companion of technocratic politics.

The Tyranny of Merits (2020)

Luck egalitarianism defends inequalities that arise from effort and choice. This highlights a point of convergence with free-market liberalism. Both emphasize personal responsibility and make the community’s obligation to help the needy conditional on showing that their neediness is no fault of their own.

The Tyranny of Merits (2020)

Americans’ strong attachment to individual initiative, together with their willingness to accept inequality, leads them to exaggerate the possibility of rising through hard work. Europeans’ skepticism that individual effort conquers all, together with their lesser tolerance of inequality, leads them to underestimate the possibility of rising.

The Tyranny of Merits (2020)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Michael Sandel (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.