MetaEconGary | Profile

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Join date: Feb 27, 2019

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Born curious, the Blog is just another way to address subjects about which I am curious, with the additional curiosity of what Dual Interest Theory (DIT) in Metaeconomics might have to say about same! So far, DIT has even surprised me: I developed it after working for 3-decades to explain farmer economic choice of soil and water conservation practices, and did not anticipate that DIT would work well at giving new insights into any and all (at least all I have applied it to, so far) economic questions. What think?

Posts (149)

Sep 7, 2026 ∙ 19 min

(Brief)Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?

Preface: The Detailed review of Sandel (2020) in the book by this title (and the later 2021 version Can We Find the Common Good) is done in “academic prose” akin to a journal paper. The Brief review here was done with help from ChatGPT-5.6 Sol. A Substack version is also available. So, in that AI is quite capable at integration, not thinking, the following is a review by ThinkingMe&IntegratorChat. Also, this essay is not just a Review of Sandel (2020). It is also about using Dual...

Sep 7, 2026 ∙ 2 min

(Detailed)Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?

Sandel (2020) in Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? (and the 2021 paperback/Kindle version Finding the Common Good, the page numbers herein from that Kindle version) is looking for what makes for a just society, looking at aristocracy and meritocracy, and other alternatives like free market liberalism and egalitarian (welfare state) liberalism, and especially looking at how a system addresses inequality. It is implicitly understood that meritocracy is a main feature of...

Sep 7, 2026 ∙ 4 min

Review Done Through the DIT (Dual Interest Theory) Lens

Through the DIT lens used here to review and make sense of Sandel, both meritocracy and aristocracy --- as well as free-market liberalism and to some extent even egalitarian liberalism --- are all systems putting inordinate attention to the self-interest of the few and not enough attention to the other (shared with the other)-interest of the many who do not make it to the top. DIT points to the key role of empathy, in both cognitive and affective forms, in tempering the more primal ego which...