Brock Education: a Journal of Educational Research and Practice (Jul 2023)

Book review: The tyranny of merit: What’s become the common good?

  • Long Vu

DOI
https://doi.org/10.26522/brocked.v32i2.1001
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 32, no. 2

Abstract

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This review examines Michael Sandel's The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good? Sandel, following in the footsteps of academics who criticize meritocracy as a formula for governing our society, traces its roots from the providentialist heritage to its secularized neoliberal form. Meritocracy, which is grounded in Western cosmology, not only views human society as the sum of individual subjects with individual responsibilities that may be utilized in the market economy, but it also separates individuals into two opposed groups: winners and losers. This reasoning defends the existence of inequality rather than addressing it. Since his analysis of meritocracy is rooted in the Western context, Sandel's major contributions to education studies should be seen through a decolonial perspective. On the basis of an ontology-based contextualization, further versions of the book may be produced, spanning from the beginnings of merit in religious texts through its expressions in the Global South.