01.05.2023 - By University of Chicago Podcast Network
For the beginning of the year, we are revisiting two previous yet timely conversations, with Adrian Wooldridge (author of "The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World") and Michael Sandel (author of "The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good").
With them, Bethany and Luigi discuss whether meritocracy creates a better world for everyone, or if it creates massive inequality. Wooldridge makes the nuanced case that while meritocracy is generally beneficial, we as a society need to recapture the notion of merit from the elites. Sandel, on the other hand, argues in a nuanced way that essentially the problem with meritocracy is not the failure to live up to the ideal, but the idea itself.