The Politics of Pretention: How the meritocracy bred smugness--and drove voters to Donald Trump.

• Author: Kahlenberg, Richard D.
• Position: On political books

The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?

by Michael J. Sandel

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 288 pp.

In examining the 2016 populist revolt that gave rise to Donald Trump and Brexit, most observers have focused on two explanations. Some say the uprising was driven by economic dislocation: Voters were angry about rising inequality and felt they were losing out because of trade. Others argue that anger with the establishment stemmed from racist discomfort with immigration, demographic change, and growing religious diversity.

In his new book, the Harvard political philosopher Michael Sandel focuses on a third factor: elite smugness and self-dealing. To Sandel, 2016 represented a rebellion of voters lacking a college degree against a governing class that believes that its credentials, wealth, and power are the products of its merit. These leaders, Sandel argues, have condescended to blue-collar workers, "eroded the dignity of work and left many feeling disrespected and disempowered."

Sandel focuses primarily on the left. For three decades, he writes, leading Democrats--including Bill Clinton (Yale Law 73), Hillary Clinton (Yale Law 73), and Barack Obama (Harvard Law 91)--embodied personally, and touted rhetorically, a brand of meritocracy hopelessly oblivious to what he calls the "tyranny of merit." Sometimes, this is implicit, as when Pete Buttigieg flexes on his ability to speak eight languages and his experience as a Rhodes Scholar. Other times, it's explicit. Speaking in Mumbai in 2018, Hillary Clinton bragged that she "won the places that represent two-thirds of America's gross domestic product"--that is, the places that had been successful in the era of globalization. This, Sandel writes, "displayed the meritocratic hubris that contributed to her defeat." The Democratic Party "once stood for farmers and working people against the privileged. Now, in a meritocratic age, its defeated standard bearer boasted that the prosperous, enlightened parts of the country had voted for her."

Sandel isn't opposed to a system of governance that prioritizes merit. He acknowledges the obvious benefits of meritocratic hiring over decisionmaking based on alternative reasoning, such as nepotism and racial or gender bias. And he knows that skills are important too. As a matter of efficiency, one wants a dentist who can repair a tooth competently. Moreover, after living through Donald Trump's presidency, marked by shameless race baiting and bumbling incompetence in the face of a global pandemic, a nondiscriminatory meritocratic approach to leadership looks pretty good.

But Sandel is right to probe the dark things that can come from embracing meritocracy. Liberals have been overemphasizing their credentials and the economic success of their cosmopolitan metropolises. In doing so, they've forgotten that these...