1 Winners and Losers

Sandel claims we live in dangerous times for democracy, as autocratic demagogues find fertile ground for stepping in and promising to fix the resentment of people at the bottom of the meritocratic ladder.  Why? Well, it is not just being left behind in the realm of pay and compensation  … as the meritocratic at the top reaped the financial rewards with little if the gains making way down the ladder --- but also losing a sense of feeling part of something.  Workers have experienced a loss in the sense of solidarity, losing the sense of dignity which comes from belonging to something larger than what serves only the individual good.

Sandel argues that the mainstream political parties are not cognizant and as a result are not recognizing what is driving populist reactions. It is not bigotry. It is not only an economic complaint.  Rising inequality is a concern, yes, but the resentment is not just in the realm of money. Yet, the market-only,  technocratic approach, like a Market is some kind of mechanism (rather than a Human process) that can be tuned, is a driver.  Notes same problems with mainstream political parties in many western Democracies.

Grievances are moral and cultural.  Social esteem is a problem.  Lost dignity, with humiliation fed from the meritocratic hubris at the top is the main problem.

DIAGNOSING POPULIST DISCONTENT

What exactly is the problem?

One claim about the problem:  Anger against elites because they encourage diversity, plurality.   White male workers becoming a minority, and are now the victims of discrimination. Political correct discourse.  So, the claim is that mysogeny, racism are in play.

Another claim about the problem:  Change is too rapid. Bewilderment and dislocation is the problem. Work is no longer tied to a place.  Don’t want to change.  Lash out against immigrants who are seen as a threat to jobs.  People who claim this problem suggest it will be fixed with job training. 

Sandel claims both diagnoses have an element of truth.  But, claims the real problem is that the meritocratic elites at the top have eroded the dignity of work for people down the ladder.  It is not the result of inexorable forces.  It is the result of choices, represented in meritocratic hubris at the top.  And, the climb up the ladder has become ever more difficult if not impossible.  The American Dream has also been exported.  

TECHNOCRACY AND MARKET-FRIENDLY GLOBALIZATION

Meritocratic framing led to claiming the Market Forum was the only place to see payoff.  Identities, allegiance to the local, the company and the community, the narrow parochial ways were to give way to cosmopolitanism.   Anyone not in favor were deemed close-minded, tribal rather than global. 

Technocratic view: Bound up with faith in markets. That a market can serve the public good.  Denies the role of the public discourse in the Other Forum. Focusing on Market Forum only took the discourse out of view.

Market framing came to be the way of both center-right and center-left politics.  Government became the problem and the market the solution, especially framed in that way in the early-1980s. In DIT terms, the Other Forum operating in the community:government of a functional democracy styled inclusive government was discounted.  The Market Forum was raised to a level of faith to accomplish solutions well outside the capabilities of said approach.  As DIT makes clear, it needs to be about Market&Other Forum, jointly operating. It is not an either/or, not a “vs” but rather is an “&” --- each needing the other.

So, debate came to  over open vs closed.  Global vs tribal.

Notes how the Democratic party also went along with the focus on the Market which had been brought into play by the Republicans.  The Democratic party no longer represented the people who it used to serve.  Specifically, Sandel points to the Reagan and Thatcher revolution in the 1980s, and how the Democrats and the Labor Party in the UK bought in, as well.  And, while the Democrats and Labor Party tried to tamp down the effects of free-market liberalism, neither party ever questioned the core idea that Market Forum was to be the focus. Rather than taming capitalism, as said Liberal parties had always done, the Liberals  joined with the Conservatives in touting the Market Forum as the save all.

Obama offered an alternative.  Obama strived at speaking to moral issues, and common good purpose.  But, Obama failed in bailing out the financial industry, in effect bailing out the entity that caused the crisis in the first place.  People saw it.  Obama placated the industry and the critiques,  rather than accept the fact it was a mistake.  Populist protest arose:  Occupy movement.  Bernie Sanders support grew on the Left.  Tea party support grew on the Right. Extremes emerged as both center-right and center-left failed to address the real problem, which is at base the tyranny of the meritocratic hubris at the top.

THE RHETORIC OF RISING

Rising inequality is part of it.  The real problem is the loss of social recognition and esteem for people down the ladder. And, it cannot be solved by more attention to opportunity.   It is about far more than the opportunity to work hard and to develop a payoff from an inherent talent. Rather, while opportunity is essential, it cannot offset the disdain sent down the ladder by the meritocratic hubris at the top.  People at the bottom lose faith, as in starting to believe what the meritocratic hubristic claims at the top send down that ladder.

Now, said reality does not justify underinvesting in people with lessor talent, or, perhaps even in the few not working hard.  Said investment demonstrated in education, health and adequate access to a healthy diet is still needed. The problem is, mobility supposedly afforded by opportunity is not enough.  It can no longer be used to justify the inequality, especially in offsetting the disdain sent down the ladder of success.

Notes how Americans have long tolerated inequality.  But, the mobility notion --- which was always believed to be the solution to the inequality problem --- has failed. The “you can make it if you try” from a pop song, used by Obama, is empty rhetoric.   Most people born poor stay there; it is now far easier in the many European countries, and Canada to make it up the ladder. The lack of state support in the US is part of the problem:  Access to education, health care and adequate diet help people move up, and are essential to more success when working to climb that ladder.  Mobility depends on a solid start at the bottom.   

Today’s meritocracy has hardened into an aristocracy of the wealthy.  The mobility idea does not work anymore.  It does not work in the United States anymore.  Rhetoric of opportunity and mobility does not fix the inequality.  The rungs of the ladder are moving further and further apart.

THE MERITOCRATIC ETHIC

The problem is not just the practice of meritocracy.  A perfect meritocracy also would fail, as the idea of deservedness is not moral and ethical.   It is not entirely our own doing.  Lots of hard working people do not make it.  The question is a moral and ethical issue, as in the idea that talent and effort leading to an outcome is somehow deserved.  People with less talent, many who work even harder than people higher on the ladder also deserve recognition, and, yes, better compensation.

Winning generates hubris.  Losing generates humiliation, and loss of hope.  The meritocratic system has a corrosive effect.  Winners inhale to deeply, too self-serving, too arrogant, not giving enough to the fortuitous luck of rising to the top.  It leads to an inattention to how the common good served to help the trek to the top in pursuit of the individual good.

It leaves little room for solidarity.  It makes merit a kind of tyranny --- the tyranny of meritocracy.   It encourages the winners to self-congratulate,  the smug conviction everyone deserves their fate, and those on the bottom clearly do.   All sense of gift or grace is banished in a meritocracy.  Need to pay attention to the fortuitous, luck of making it to the top.

THE POLITICS OF HUMILIATION

Noone likes to be looked down upon.  The meritocratic view makes it even worse in that  it is presumed anyone can make it. So, if one does fail, it denigrates the losers, that the failure is a kind of choice.  It is not.  It fuels anger and resentment. Meritocracy can be inspiring, but also denigrating.  Demoralizing.  That failure is their own doing.  Lack talent and effort to make it. Even the poor come to believe the meritocratic hubris of the rich.  Nonsense.

Some politicians, especially demagogues, use the language of winners and losers, and speak  to seeking revenge and retribution.  It claims the meritocratic elite have taken away the dignity of the people less fortunate, speaking to the humiliation of people without a college degree. The demagogue promises to fix it, and, well, generally does not, but it gives the demagogue power and, ironically, even more wealth. And, the demoralized are then even demoralized  more, as the demagogue turns to cutting subsidies for health care, food stamps, slashing government programs --- claiming it is “for their own good” ---  that often serve the lower steps of the ladder more than the top, and giving absurdly high tax cuts to the meritocrats at the top. Insult is added to injury.

Notes how the Democratic party used to stand for farmers and labor.  Trump was tuned into the resentment, but it was fake. Trump understood humiliation, and promised to fix it. People were demeaned in the lower echelons.  But, he was a con, not really about fixing it.

TECHNOCRATIC MERIT AND MORAL JUDGMENT

Sandel looks back to Aristotle and Plato, and to how the Founders of the US frame such matters. Traditional versions of political meritocracy pointed to the need for attention to  moral and ethical, the civic side of the system, in the Other Forums of community:government.  Aristotle wanted excellence in civic matters, focusing on the common good, the original meaning of merit. The Founders also wanted a focus on the common good, the civic good, a virtuous and talented meritocracy, the aristoi would serve the people.

The common good included moral education of people.  Focusing only on the Market separates the consumer from the moral. Economists --- as DIT clarifies, economists who use the SIT model --- ignoring the moral and ethical dimension are now influential.

The meritocratic system now in vogue in the United States and many other western democracies has shifted attention to the consumerism in the Market Forum, with mainstream economists as policy advisors, and in full support.  As DIT makes clear, said economists even claim that the Other Forum of government must also be run like  a Market, with only self-interest in play. Again, said advisors use SIT, the self-interest only view of people whether in the Market or the Government.  Problem is, SIT has no placeholder for the idea that work plays a role in providing dignity and respect for the worker, not just monetary payoff in satisfying consumer demand. DIT clarifies the civic side, the common good side of dignity in work. The Other Forum is no longer functional, with an impoverished public discourse, as it is claimed it is only about self-interest. DIT clarifies the Other Forum is about finding the building the content of the shared with the other-interest, and it is now missing in the meritocracy undergirding the Market-Only Forum.

The 1940-1980 meritocratic elites were successful.  Elites since 1980 have given the country extreme inequality, financial deregulation and the 2008 crisis, campaign finance methods and gerrymandered districts counter to democracy.  Partisans shout past each other.  Empty public discourse. Absence of robust public debates is the problem.

Solidarity has been undermined.  Focus is on what the market produces.  Narrow talk in Market rhetoric terms. The outcome is the erosion of the social standing and esteem of the working class.  The meritocratic elite at the top are not paying attention. Anger is the mode of the bottom.

THE POPULIST UPRISING

Speaks to the British sociologist, 1958, wrote the book The Rise of the Meritocracy.  He coined the term. He warned of the totally predictable hubris among the winners, seeing it as a just reward, and losers would be held in disdain.  It was a recipe for social discord. He envisioned the anger.  In effect, he saw the Tyranny of Merit.  It was totally predictable.

The populist claim reflects a defect in  meritocratic governing. Taken away meaning and purpose. Now, we have authoritarianism filling that gap, with market and religious fundamentalism, as in nationalism.

Need public discourse to revive the sense of solidarity.  Need to build the Other Forum and bring same back into play to give context to the Market Forum.