If I had to guess, I’d say that Michael Sandel — political philosopher and Harvard professor — doesn’t care much about fashion. By that I don’t mean he dresses poorly. In fact, in his tie-less oxford shirt and sport coat, he cuts an affable figure of the academia aesthetic. Personal effects aside, Sandel’s book, “The Tyranny of Merit,” describes a concept that maps well onto the cultural and economic dynamics at play within the fashion system: the sorting machine.
Sandel’s book is mostly about the stratifying and polarizing effects of America’s merit-based higher education system. He argues that the zero-sum game of college admissions — to elite schools in particular — creates winners and losers in a moral and economic sense. The winners, who believe they earned their spot at top schools through talent plus effort, go on to enjoy wealth, power, and a sense of moral worthiness. The losers are sustained by honest if unglamorous work, and command considerably less esteem than their more (or differently) educated peers.