Sandel is not about guilt-tripping anxious parents of front-row kids; they’re suffering too, he says. But the credentialed have come to imagine themselves as smarter, wiser, more tolerant — and therefore more deserving of recognition and respect — than the noncredentialed.

Sandel’s prescriptions seem inadequate to this bracing indictment.

As a critique of meritocracy and an explanation of today’s populist resentment toward educated elites, The Tyranny of Merit is a compelling book. But Sandel’s tentative suggestions for remedying the harms of meritocracy focus far too much on liberal elites, while failing to address the much more significant ways in which business elites have harmed workers. In addition, by focusing on remedies rooted in the past, his vision also neglects the increasing diversity of workers by race, gender, and immigration status..

The peculiarity of Sandel’s argument is that, despite his talk of a common good, he locates that good in private institutions such as the Ivy League rather than in public ones. A public, widely accessible merit-based system such as the University of California seems to have no prominent place in Sandel’s vision, yet I would argue that such a system is our best hope.

... a cogent, penetrating critique of meritocracy, which, he argues persuasively, has trammeled our sense of community and mutual respect.

... [a] bracing sociopolitical treatise.