Michael Sandel: "At the base of populism it is that many workers think that elites despise them"

—The prologue of his book "The tyranny of merit" begins by saying: "When the Coronavirus pandemic was uncovered in 2020, the United States, like many other countries, was not prepared".Why does a book about meritocracy begin by referring to the crisis of the Coronavirus?

—The connection between Coronavirus pandemic and the tyranny of merit has to do with what keeps our societies together.We were not morally prepared for pandemic.Is that for decades the division between winners and losers in our society had expanded, poisoning our policy, separating us.It is partly due to the growing inequality of the last decades.Not only that.It also has to do with the change in attitude towards success that accompanied the progress of inequality.Those who arrived at the top believed that their success was their work.The result of their merit, and those who were left behind the only ones who had to blame themselves was themselves.Why this polarization of inequality made us not be prepared for pandemic.We were supposed to cooperate within societies and worldwide to defeat the pandemic.But we verify that the pandemic showed pre -existing inequalities.It was not true, as we heard at the beginning, that we were all together in this.As we developed, we realized that the division of our societies was felt in the economy;Also in the way of facing pandemic and fighting the virus.

—Ance the contribution situation of a United States governed, for example, by John Rawls, how would the health crisis have been cool and after?

"I suppose if the United States had a more egalitarian society.where the division between rich and poor were lower and there would be a more appropriate social security network.If we had such a society, there would have been less polarization.A greater sense of mutual obligation would have been perceived.The scenario would be less distrust and suspicion.The result would be less tensions and political disagreements about whether people should carry chins and protect other people.Maybe we would also meet a greater disposition for everyone to get vaccinated when the opportunity arose.But we go through a period of growing inequality.Argument in my book on the effects of the liberal version of globalization, which was embraced by both political parties for about four decades.The result is that social divisions were deepened, our society was polarized.When pandemic arrived, people politicized everything, even the use of masks and vaccines.A more egalitarian society would have relieved these tensions and polarization sources to some extent.

"All political ideologies are based on a combination of reason and emotion."

- Can models such as Athenian democracy, the humanistic and ethical anti -religious spirit of the eighteenth century, the illustration of the eighteenth century?

—In ancient, such as those that date back to the Greeks, or even the most recent of the Enlightenment, which date back to the 18th century, are still present as possibilities.Make up our public debates.But we cannot reproduce the conditions that gave rise to the birth of Aristotle's polis: a closely united political community in which citizens deliberate each other as equals.Nor is it possible to reproduce the stage of the Enlightenment in the 18th century, in the sense of a human universality.That does not mean that the philosophical ideals of the past cannot form the present.If I did not believe it would not be here, I would not have spent a career teaching political philosophy, asking my students to read Aristotle, Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mills.These traditions of thought, these ways of thinking about justice are present in various tensions and moments of our public life.Being more aware of the moral and civic resources of our traditions can help us understand and reimagine policy and public life today.That is my task.In my book Justice: do we do what we owe?I try to show how utilitarian ideas, Kantian ideas and ancient Aristotelian ideas continue to inform our political debate.My argument is that the excesses of individualism, which some would go back to certain versions of the Enlightenment, and the excesses of faith in the market led us to lose contact with the oldest tradition of civic virtue, the political community, deliberate togetheras citizens.My recent work tries to rediscover the policy of the common good as a way of healing polarization.

—¿Se puede establecer alguna conexión entre las ideas de la Ilustración y las de Immanuel Kant con el pensamiento conservador y liberal? En Sudamérica usamos “liberal" en un sentido diferente: como conservador o liberal en sentido económico.

—It is important to be clear about what we understand by liberalism. En la política de los Estados Unidos, como usted sabe, el liberalismo se refiere a los que están en la centroizquierda, mientras que en Argentina y en Europa el término “liberal" se refiere a lo que normalmente llamaríamos “neoliberal" en términos económicos.That from the free market there are basic issues of politics.If the question is if Immanuel Kant supports the liberal economic philosophy of Laissez Faire, the answer is yes and not.Yes, because it rejected the utilitarian idea that we should simply maximize collective happiness without taking into account individual rights.But liberal economic policy, or neoliberalism, is different.He says that if we value economic efficiency and market mechanisms above all, then we will achieve the public good, we will have a more successful economy, a higher GDP, and then we will be respecting individual freedom.It is a closer idea to Friedrich Hayek, which explicitly related the idea of free market mechanisms with respect for individual freedom.From Kant's point of view, this conception of freedom is defective: being free is not to be in the economic sense, of being free to exercise my consumption preferences.For Kant, freedom means autonomy, according to a law that gives myself.If we think about freedom of consumption, Kant would say, we are not really acting freely, in the sense of autonomously.We are simply obeying the dictates of our preferences, of our habits, appetites, wishes.Kantian freedom in something superior to that.

"We were not morally prepared to travel a pandemic."

"You wrote:" They run dangerous times for democracy. Puede apreciarse dicha amenaza en el crecimiento de la xenofobia y del apoyo popular a figuras autocráticas que ponen a prueba los límites de las normas democráticas".Why don't political parties account for people's expectations?

—The reason is that they embraced a version of neoliberal globalization for four decades with hope and expectations that this would make everyone better.It is the issue of tyranny of merit.But it does not work.Those who are at the top enjoy.They faced the stagnation of wages, lost their jobs due to the outsourcing of jobs to countries with low wages and inequality.The response of traditional parties was: “Do not worry so much about increasing inequalities and salary stagnation.Try to improve, compete and win in the global economy going to the University.Go and get a university degree. Lo que ganes dependerá de lo que aprendas".They told us you can do it if you try.This is what I call the rhetoric of bribes in the tyranny of merit.It is an answer to inequality that says: “The problem is not in the structure of the economy.The problem is in you. Si tienes problemas, no has conseguido el título y las credenciales que te permitirán prosperar".The problem is that this promise of individual ascending mobility through higher education helped some to ascend, but it was not an adequate response to inequality.And it contained an implicit insult: you are the culprit of your own failure.It was involved.The problem is that individual ascending mobility is very difficult in our society.Few people really ascend or not have gone to university.Do you know how many generations are necessary for someone from a poor family to rise, overcome obstacles and even achieve middle class status?In Denmark two generations are needed, mobility possibilities are quite fast.In the United States and in Argentina, between five and six generations are needed so that a family that begins as poor reaching the middle class status over time.Mobility is not an adequate response to inequality.Not only that, we forget, those who have credentials, that most do not have a four -year -old university degree in the United States.Almost two thirds of the population do not have that degree title.Thinking that the solution was at university was crazy.Therefore, I suggest a change in our public speech: let's stop focusing on assembling people for meritocratic competence and focusing more on renewing the dignity of work and improving the lives of all those who contribute to the common good.

—Aristóteles dijo: “No tenemos el mérito de tener mérito".Are we debtors of something to merit?

—It's an essential issue.Think about the idea that we are indebted to the talents and circumstances that allow us to prosper.The arrogance that meritocracy encourages among the successful.When those who triumph believe that their success is their work, the product of their own merit, they forget the incidence of good fortune.They also forget their debt with those who make our achievements possible: parents, teachers, community, the country, the time.A source of what I call in the book the meritocratic arrogance of the elites is this tendency to believe that we did it for ourselves, thinking that we are self -sufficient as moral agents and human beings.It is the belief that we are totally responsible for our fate in life or our destiny.Successful think that everything is achieved by themselves and therefore deserve everything the market gives them.This makes them look with contempt for others.It is one of the bases of the populist reaction against the elites: the feeling of many workers that the elites despise them is something that Donald Trump could exploit.It's something I try to fight.

—Usted dijo: “La dura realidad es que Donald Trump resultó elegido porque supo explotar un abundante manantial de ansiedades, frustraciones y agravios legítimos a los que los partidos tradicionales no han sabido dar una respuesta convincente".In a report of this same series, the Spanish political scientist Josep Colomer highlighted the role of anger and emotions in politics.Is emotion a problem for establishing a fair and rational society?What do Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump differentiate?

—All political ideologies are based on a combination of reason and emotion.It would be a mistake to divide political arguments into rational and irrational.All theories of justice and the common good, and of political obligation are based on some combination of reason, reflection and emotion.Let's think about nationalism, patriotism, belonging.Or on the dark side, in rabies and resentment, and the feeling of humiliation that encourages the reaction that Brexit brought in Britain to vote Brexit, or Trump's example.It is necessary to distrust politicians who claim that they represent rationality and that their opponents represent mere emotion.It is also true that anger, resentment and feeling of grievance are moral and political emotions, are totally separated from the legitimate issues of justice.That is why I say that Donald Trump was able to exploit among many workers that feeling of contempt.But it is better to try to ask: how did these resentments arise? Are they purely prejudices based on racism and xenophobia, or are the resentments of the workers who led to the choice of Donald Trump, in part, a reflection of injusticesand sources of injustice and lack of respect and social esteem that resulted in the way in which the meritocratic elites had been ruling?I think it's the second.The ruling elites of the last decades did not understand that they promoted the legitimate sources of resentment and grievance.Their policies produced broad inequalities, the feeling that their success was reflex of their merit reinforced among the winners.Thus, the workers felt abandoned, belittled, that their task was not properly respected.It can be said that it is an emotion.But it is a rooted resentment in real conditions.

“Rediscovering the common good is a cure for polarization that afflicts us."

"And as for the similarities and differences between Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump?"I would also like to ask you about the possible analogies between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Joe Biden.

—In the two Republicans, both appealed to the workers, the voters of the working class who traditionally voted for the Democratic Party, in the days of FDR, Franklin Roosevelt, when that party defended the workers against the rich, powerful and privileged.Thus, both Reagan and Trump took advantage of the fact that the Democratic Party, in recent decades, had abandoned the workers and became more the party of professional elites and well educated.Thus they won the labor vote.The clearest difference between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Joe Biden is that the first was chosen in the depths of the great depression, and had a mandate to promulgate dramatic legislative reforms: reinforce collective bargaining, allow workers to have more voice, promulgate lawsof public works, what we call infrastructure today, provide federal employment support and establish a social security system.Biden was also chosen during a crisis period.Pandemia and violent sequelae of the Trump administration.In that sense, there are differences.Joe Biden does not have a strong majority in Congress.It has a divided Senate, 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, and a very small majority in the lower house.And almost all Republicans oppose some of their main laws, which try to strengthen the Social Security Network and support for poor families, child care and climate change.Political circumstances are different.Joe Biden has less resources to promulgate dramatic reforms.

—Uno de los capítulos de su libro se llama “Diagnosis del descontento populista". ¿Por qué elige el concepto médico de “diagnosis"? ¿El populismo es una enfermedad?

"It's an interesting question.Yes and no.Populism, in general terms, really means a movement of the people.Typically, a popular movement against powerful and privileged.Thus understood, it is not a disease, it is an expression of democracy and democratic activism.Something admirable, which must be encouraged.In the history of the United States, populism at the end of the 19th century was a movement to empower workers and farmers to resist the exploitation of financial industry and large companies and corporate power.It is not a disease, although you always have to interpret it.It is not so much a matter of diagnosis, but of interpretation.The current populism of reaction against the elites that chose Donald Trump and that has led figures such as Viktor Orban in Hungary or Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey requires a diagnosis.Reflects a policy of anger, resentment and grievance in the face of the humiliation of the workers.It does not mean that it is a disease.It is rather a mixture.It has dark sides, including the tendency to racism and xenophobia.But, as we saw, it has a legitimate side.So, when I talk about diagnosing populist discontent, what I mean is to analyze and interpret the sources of discontent, hoping to unravel the dark, intolerant and xenophobic dimension of issues of the economy that must be addressed.Hence the idea of diagnosis.

—Usted dijo en una entrevista: “El primer problema de la meritocracia es que las oportunidades en realidad no son iguales para todos".Does inequality generate a long -term problem?

—A problem linked to meritocracy is that we are not up to meritocratic ideals.The inequality of opportunities is an example.In order for true equal opportunities, it is not enough, for example, that children of all origins, young people, can compete to be admitted to the best universities.It is also necessary for young people to have the same training and education to get there.If we look at the IVY League universities in the United States, everyone can appear at access tests.But despite the generous policies of financial aid at the universities of the Ivy League, there are more students from families in the highest percent of the income scale, the highest percent, than students from families in halflower country.But the following question could be raised.Suppose we can fix this in some way: that we could achieve a society in which opportunities were really equal, in which everyone had the opportunity to go to good schools while growing.Everyone has the opportunity to read books, and learn, and have extracurricular activities and cultural enrichment.And then we started the race.Then we would have a perfect meritocracy.But would it be a fair society?Would it be a good society?My answer is no.And this leads us to the second problem of meritocracy, the ideal itself is defective: even in a perfect meritocracy, attitudes towards corrosive success for the common good would be cultivated.If everyone had and they really believed that they have the same opportunities to succeed, then the winners could believe with some justification: “I won it. Me corresponden todos los beneficios que esto conlleva".This attitude towards success is defective becausedo they allow us to succeed?Having those talents to do or to a large extent good luck?I take sport as an example to illustrate this.Lionel Messi would be an example.Illustrates this point on talent as a gift.It's a great, great soccer player.He earns a lot of money.Something like 140 million dollars a year.Of course Messi trains hard.But I could work hard twenty -four hours a day, seven days a week, and not be as a great soccer player as Messi.And that is because he has been blessed with athletic gifts.It is not his work, it's good luck.And not only that.What happens to the fact that Messi lives in a time and in a society in which we love football and we are willing to pay a lot to see football matches, and to buy the clothes of our favorite team?Is it his thing that lives in a moment and in a society that rewards and rewarding that type of talents?Or is it good luck?If Messi had lived in the Renaissance era, he would have found that they didn't care about football.Fresco painters care more.So there is a lot of contingency.And look, although we work hard to cultivate and exercise our talent, there is a good luck to get to success.There is good luck in living in an era that coincidentally rewards and rewards the talent we have.Even in a perfect meritocracy, although the race could start with everyone at the same starting point, the winners will be the fastest, but being the fastest runner has a lot of luck.The gift of talent, the elegance of the feet, not to mention living at the time the race and the careers that are good for us are disputed.In that race, an issue to attend is the demoralization of losers.This is what we see today.In polarization the trace of the tyranny of merit can be found.

"It was not true that" we are all together in this "during the pandemic."

—In Argentina, the discussion about merit divides government and opposition followers, because the last president and opposition leader, Mauricio Macri, said he is a follower of meritocracy and the current president said that meritocracyIt is relative because we are debtors of the gifts that lucky gave us.Do you have experience in other countries where meritocracy is in the center of division and political polarization?

—There is not so explicitly, but in many democracies there is a debate about meritocracy and its connection with justice.The question is whether what we have just talked about is an issue that arises in the Argentine debate about meritocracy.Meritocracy understood how to have all open careers who wants to run, how to hire the best qualified person for a certain job is a good thing.I am not criticizing meritocracy in that sense.If I need an operation, I want it to be done by a well -qualified surgeon.In a way, that makes me a believer of merit or meritocracy.In an airplane I want a very well qualified pilot operating the aircraft.But the meritocracy that I criticize further claims the claim of the successful.The belief that success is our work, that successful can claim credit and therefore deserve all the rewards that the market gives them.The version of the meritocracy that criticizes is the one that puts the money as a measure of success.Or education as support.Those two ways of measuring merit are defective, they are too narrow, especially the first.We often assume that the money that people earn is the measure of their contribution to the common good.But, this is a mistake.Even the strongest defender of the free market economy would be in trouble to affirm that a coverage fund manager really contributes a thousand times more value to the economy than a nurse or a school teacher.Think about the best and most inspiring teacher of your high school.Think about what paid that secondary teacher and then think about what they pay, for example, a coverage fund manager.The coverage fund manager wins 800 or 900, perhaps a thousand times more than the best secondary teacher.Or think of Messi.Does anyone really believe that this salary difference corresponds to the true difference in the social value of the contribution?It would be a very difficult statement to make.And if that statement cannot defend itself, then we cannot assume that the market verdict on what really counts as a valuable contribution to the economy or the common good is a true measure of merit.I do not criticize that we do not hire people for jobs based on friend or nepotism, or inheritant privileges or special favors.I criticize meritocracy understood as a merit account that is based on the amount of money that is earned or how well it is done in standardized exams that lead to admission to the best universities.

"Is the merit of the talented as the one who strives?"Those who strive should also something because something created that effort?

—It is admirable to work hard to cultivate our talents and serve the common good.It is a virtue.Especially if hard work implies developing our talent, whatever, to make a contribution.But meritocracy does not consist in rewarding hard work.Many people work hard and charge very little.So the effort is not the only base.The contribution is key.It consists of a combination of effort and talent, which is largely a matter of luck.That the effort is a virtue is something that is within our control to some extent.But does not justify the meritocratic issue linked to remuneration.For the reasons we have just discussed, and that Lionel Messi's example shows, the contribution depends on effort and talent.And even if the effort is entirely ours.

"What differences are there between success and happiness?"

—Aristotle defines happiness as the soul acts according to virtue.Happiness is not a state of being or a mood.It is a form of activity that guides us towards a good life.Success may or may not lead to happiness.Success is measured in relation to our society and other people.Being successful in a specific project or vocation can, of course, be a source of happiness.But everything depends on how valuable and important that vocation or that project is.Success in general and the achievement of a specific objective are not a source of happiness, unless the objective itself is dignified, intrinsically worthy, and satisfactory.Therefore, I would say that happiness is the superior objective and success, when it leads to happiness, it depends on seeking objectives that are worthy of us, that are intrinsically satisfactory, instead of objectives that can be superficial such as success such as successIn winning a client, or success in getting many views on social networks, or having many friends or followers on social networks, or even success in earning money.There is no necessary connection between success in those areas and happiness.

“Successful believe that they deserve everything the market gives them."

—Uno de los capítulos de su libro se llama “La retórica del ascenso".Did the center -left and the left fell into global thinking about success and this form of meritocracy?

- The rhetoric of the ascent, or the rhetoric of the climb, is a certain meritocratic slogan that many politicians offered in recent decades in response to inequality. La retórica del ascenso decía: “Si quieres competir y ganar en la economía global, ve a la universidad, lo que ganes dependerá de lo que aprendas". Decía: “Todo el mundo debería ser libre de ascender hasta donde le lleven sus esfuerzos y su talento".Now, at a level, who could disagree with that?No one should be slowed down by poverty, prejudices or discrimination.But the rhetoric of ascent was also that the solution to inequality is simply that each of us, as an individual, tries to ascend, through hard work, until an advanced title.This is an individualistic solution for what is really a systemic problem.They are things that states both the center -left and the center -right.There is a tradition of discussing the rhetoric of ascent.Ronald Reagan, in the United States, talked a lot about it and then Bill Clinton after him assumed it.George w.Bush and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton often referred to this idea of the right to individual ascending mobility through higher education.But this slogan, this rhetoric, lost its ability to inspire in 2016, in part because mobility would stagnate, it is not easy to ascend, partly because most Americans do not have a university degree, which is what is in the heartof this idea of ascending through higher education, and in part because the rhetoric of ascending, the security that you can do it if you try, is inspiring in one sense, but it is insulting in another.It is insulting, because if you have not raised, if you have not obtained a university degree but you live in a meritocratic society that says that success is your work, then you can only conclude that your failure must be your fault. Muchos trabajadores estadounidenses se encontraron con que no ascendieron y no pudieron ascender en las últimas décadas y que lucharon por encontrar trabajo y llegar a fin de mes, su perjuicio se vio agravado por el insulto de la retórica del ascenso que les dijo: “Tu futuro está en tus manos, puedes lograrlo si lo intentas".That must mean that if I have not achieved it I have not worked enough or I do not have enough talent.I am responsible for my problems, my supposed failure.And this is where I believe that the rhetoric of the ascent was lost in the insult, the implicit in this offer of ascending mobility, which is why I think we have to treat these inequalities of income, power and wealth directly, instead of seeking theI work around telling each individual to try to ascend for himself.Another way of saying this is that it is not enough to encourage people to climb the ladder of success at a time when the steps of the staircase are increasingly separated.At one point, political leaders have to worry about the stairs of the stairs, not just to encourage individuals or equip them to climb the stairs and compete with a better and higher step.

“Full democracy requires that each citizen somehow a philosopher"

—They again in an contrafactic way, would a government of philosophers desirable?

—Depers of what philosophers.Plato's answer to his question would be that yes.But when he talked about philosophers ruling, he was not referring to philosophy professors who write in academic magazines and teach in universities.His model was Socrates, the first of the Western philosophical tradition.What Plato admired Socrates and thought that he would prepare to govern is that he cared to identify the meaning of justice in good life, and what a life of virtue means.Plato is right that we must be governed by those oriented towards justice, the common good and civic virtue.But I would not say that this or that current philosopher embody all those virtues.

Full democracy requires that each citizen somehow a philosopher.That reflect on the meaning of justice and the common good, and that is prepared to reason, deliberate and argue about the meaning of these concepts of equal to equal to their fellow citizens.Thus, the ideal of philosophy can form a democratic citizenship.It is not that a philosopher only governs, but that each democratic citizen is sufficiently attentive to justice and the common good.

Production: Pablo Helman and Natalia Gelfman.

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