When Success Stops Convincing: Sandel and the Tyranny of Merit
The Weakening of Meritocratic Narratives: When Authority Loses Its Power to Persuade, and Institutional Communication Reaches Its Limits (Part II)
If power today feels less convincing, it is not only because institutions appear distant or inconsistent. It is also because one of the central moral languages used to justify inequality has begun to lose its force.
That language is merit.
For much of the modern era, meritocracy functioned as more than a system of selection. It functioned as a story, a way of explaining why some rise and others do not, and why that outcome should be accepted.
Success was not merely an outcome. It was presented as a reflection of effort, discipline, and ability. Inequality, within this framework, could be reconciled with fairness, not because outcomes were equal, but because they were understood to be deserved.
This was the quiet achievement of meritocracy: it aligned hierarchy with moral legitimacy. But this alignment depends on belief. Not belief in perfection, but belief in plausibility—that effort meaningfully connects to outcome in a way that can be regarded as fair. Once that belief weakens, the moral clarity of success begins to shift. What is at stake is not whether success exists, but whether it still feels deserved.
As Michael Sandel argues in The Tyranny of Merit, meritocracy does not simply reward talent. It also constructs a moral narrative around success. Those who rise are encouraged to see themselves as deserving. Those who do not are left to interpret their position through the same logic. Success comes to be read as virtue, and from that reading, moral authority is inferred. Failure, if not fault, then something uncomfortably close to it.
Over time, this produces not only inequality of outcome, but inequality of moral standing. This moralization is what gives meritocracy its persuasive force, but it also raises the stakes of belief. The more strongly success is framed as deserved, the more its credibility depends on whether it continues to be perceived as justified.
If success is not fully earned, can it still claim to be deserved? If outcomes are shaped by factors beyond individual control, can failure still be interpreted as individual shortcoming? These questions are no longer abstract. As they become more widely felt, success becomes harder to read cleanly. It is no longer understood only as the result of individual qualities, but as something that cannot be fully explained by them. The language of merit does not disappear. But it becomes less convincing as a complete account.
This shift has consequences that extend beyond economics. It changes how success translates into legitimacy. Achievement is still recognized, but it no longer automatically carries the same moral authority it once did. The result is a subtle but significant change in interpretation: admiration becomes more qualified; recognition becomes more conditional.
The question is no longer simply: What did this person do right? But increasingly: Is this outcome fully deserved? This does not produce immediate rejection. It produces hesitation. A reluctance to fully endorse the moral meaning of success.
In such an environment, merit no longer stabilizes legitimacy. It complicates it. Because the more strongly success is framed as deserved, the more it invites scrutiny; and where that scrutiny cannot be resolved, its claim to authority weakens.
The consequence is not the disappearance of hierarchy, nor a rejection of excellence. It is a shift in how success is interpreted. Hierarchy persists but its moral clarity diminishes. Success continues but its authority becomes less secure. This reveals a deeper fracture, not in the existence of success, but in the belief that success, by itself, justifies the position it confers.
The question that follows is not whether merit still exists. It does. The question is whether success still convinces, whether it can still carry the authority it once did. Increasingly, the answer appears uncertain. And in that uncertainty, the relationship between success and authority begins to loosen—not dramatically, but perceptibly enough to alter how authority is recognized, and how it is granted.