From the winner of the 2025 Berggruen Prize A Times Literary Supplement 's Book of the Year
A New Statesman 's Best Book of the Year A Bloomberg 's Best Book of the Year A Guardian
Best Book About Ideas of the Year The world-renowned philosopher and author of the
bestselling Justice explores the central question of our time: What has become of the common
good? These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers where
the odds are stacked in favor of the already fortunate. Stalled social mobility and entrenched
inequality give the lie to the American credo that "you can make it if you try". The
consequence is a brew of anger and frustration that has fueled populist protest and extreme
polarization and led to deep distrust of both government and our fellow citizens--leaving us
morally unprepared to face the profound challenges of our time. World-renowned philosopher
Michael J. Sandel argues that to overcome the crises that are upending our world we must
rethink the attitudes toward success and failure that have accompanied globalization and rising
inequality. Sandel shows the hubris a meritocracy generates among the winners and the harsh
judgement it imposes on those left behind and traces the dire consequences across a wide swath
of American life. He offers an alternative way of thinking about success--more attentive to the
role of luck in human affairs more conducive to an ethic of humility and solidarity and more
affirming of the dignity of work. The Tyranny of Merit points us toward a hopeful vision of a
new politics of the common good.
