Mind the Economy/Justice 106

Contributory justice and the moral account that merit does not pay

This is the heart of contributory justice: the ability to respond to the "fundamental human desire to be needed by those with whom we share a life in common".

by Vittorio Pelligra*.

25 May 2025

7' min read

Key points

A double face
From distributive to contributory justice
The meritocratic rhetoric
A paradigm shift
A civil pedagogy

7' min read

In a context such as ours marked by growing inequalities and increasingly polarising political rancour, the debate on meritocracy and its rhetoric can no longer be just an academic question, because it represents the beating heart of a social divide that is eroding the stability and cohesion of our democracies from within.

Michael Sandel explained this lucidly and clearly in his bookThe Tyranny of Merit (Feltrinelli, 2020): 'The more we think we are self-made,' Sandel writes, 'the more difficult it becomes to learn gratitude and humility. And without these feelings, it is difficult to care for the common good'. The rhetoric of merit marks a crossroads where the worlds of school and university, business and labour, politics and the very role of markets meet.

A double face

Meritocratic culture, Sandel writes, has a double face. On the one hand, it promises fairness - anyone can make it, as long as they put in the effort - and on the other, it turns economic success into an indicator of moral worth. Having succeeded does not only indicate that one has more but also that one is worth more. "Those at the top congratulate themselves that they have deserved their fate, just as they are convinced that those at the bottom have deserved theirs," writes the Harvard philosopher. And this belief breeds arrogance in the winners, who see their success as entirely self-made, and humiliation in the losers, who internalise their failure as a fault.

The narrative of 'if you try, you succeed' is thus transformed into a moral imperative that ignores starting conditions, inherited privileges, and even the role of luck. This is what politics does when it insists on the role of merit and keeps repeating 'if you try, you succeed'. From Obama to Giorgia Meloni, paradoxically the message is the same. And it is a message that promotes an ideology of individual responsibility that is ambiguous and dangerous because it morally justifies growing inequality and exempts politics from the duty to remedy it.

And this is why Sandel tries to overturn the narrative of social mobility. He does not contest that merit is important, but denounces the way in which the meritocratic system ends up fuelling the 'hubris of the winners' and the humiliation of those left behind. It is the dark face of meritocracy, where personal success becomes a measure of one's moral worth, and failure, individual guilt. Economic success or failure and social prestige become the only measure of moral worth. Then the pandemic arrives and rips the veil off this rhetoric: the essential workers are the nurses, cashiers, diver and other logistics workers who get us the necessities home. They are the most exposed and necessary workers. But the market does not reward them because they are as necessary as they are underpaid, socially debased precarious workers. The reason lies in the fact that, as Sandel points out, 'In a market society, it is difficult to resist the tendency to confuse the money we make with the value of our contribution to the common good.

From distributive to contributory justice

Here comes into play the idea that we need to shift the focus from distributive justice - "what share do we get?" - to contributive justice - "how much can we contribute?". This shift implies the recognition that work is not only a source of income, but also of meaning, dignity and social recognition. And that a just society should value and reward contributions that actually make collective life work, not just those that generate profit.

Work, writes Sandel, is not simply a commodity to be traded on the market. It is a 'form of belonging' and an expression of our bond with others. Contributive justice therefore calls for a radical reconsideration of value hierarchies: who really counts? Who really creates value? Who holds society together? Work then becomes 'a socially integral activity, a way of honouring our obligation to contribute to the common good'. The transition to a more just society certainly involves the redistribution of income and opportunities from those who have more to those who have less, but this is not enough unless there is full recognition of the dignity of the contribution that each person can make to the common life.

We find the first formulation of this idea of 'contributory justice' in the pastoral letter of the North American bishops' conference entitled 'Economic Justice for All'. The American bishops write: "Social justice implies that people have an obligation to be active and productive participants in the life of society, and society has a duty to enable them to participate in this way. This form of justice can also be called 'contributive' because it emphasises the duty of all who are able to contribute to the creation of the goods, services, and other non-material or spiritual values necessary for the well-being of the entire community". And for this, the bishops continue, economic and social institutions must be organised so that people "can contribute to society in ways that respect their freedom and the dignity of their work. Work should enable the working person to become 'more human', more capable of acting intelligently, freely and in ways that lead to self-fulfilment".

Then in number 73 of the letter we read "Economic conditions that leave large numbers of able-bodied people unemployed, underemployed, or employed in dehumanising conditions do not meet the converging demands of these three forms of basic justice. Adequately paid work for all who seek it is the primary means of achieving basic justice in our society. Discrimination in job opportunities or income levels on the basis of race, gender or other arbitrary standards can never be justified (...) When the effects of past discrimination persist, society has an obligation to take positive steps to overcome the legacy of injustice."

The meritocratic rhetoric

It is precisely here that meritocratic rhetoric intervenes. To make us believe that "the legacy of injustice" not only does not have to be overcome, but rather that it should be justified, legitimised and even indicated as a model around which to hopefully build the social order. "The concentration of privileges that exists today," the bishops continue, "derives much more from institutional relationships that distribute power and wealth in an unequal manner than from differences in talent or lack of desire to work. These institutional patterns must be examined and revised if we are to meet the demands of basic justice (...) The ultimate injustice is for a person or group to be actively treated or passively abandoned as if they were not part of the human race. To treat people in this way is to say that they simply do not count as human beings (...) This exclusion can occur in the political sphere: restriction of free speech, concentration of power in the hands of a few, or outright repression by the state. It can also take equally harmful economic forms (...) The poor, the disabled and the unemployed are too often simply left behind'. Not by merit or demerit but by a conscious choice of free people. 'These patterns of exclusion,' the bishops conclude, 'are created by free human beings. In this sense they can properly be defined as forms of real social sin'.

A paradigm shift

A paradigm shift that leads us to question ourselves no longer on 'how much you are worth in the market' but on 'how much you contribute to the community'. In this sense, the heart of Sandel's proposal is not nostalgia for a more egalitarian past, but a vision of a democracy based on mutual respect. Contributory justice does not only call for the redistribution of wealth, but also for the redistribution of social esteem. This implies the need to question which jobs deserve honour and reward, how to build an economy that truly values those who contribute to the common good.

How? For instance, by enhancing the minimum wage, by reducing precariousness and temporal destructuring, by linking tax policies not only to the ability to pay, but also to the social value of economic activities. Taxation, therefore, becomes itself an instrument of justice. "Paying taxes," writes Sandel, "is a sign that I recognise that I owe something to the community that has enabled me to succeed". In other words, the tax contribution becomes part of a moral pact between citizens. It is the opposite narrative to the one that those who are successful must 'defend' themselves against the state.

Here, too, meritocratic rhetoric casts its corrosive shadow. "I am a self-made man", the myth of the self-made man, of the one who owes nothing to anyone but owes everything to his talent, his commitment and his determination. And since the self-made man owes nothing to anyone, why pay taxes? What reason is there? When a Prime Minister says that tax evasion is a form of 'self-defence', as Berlusconi did, or we are told that collecting taxes due is like asking for 'state protection money', as Giorgia Meloni recently did, the circle is closed. Not only does the government not work for the reduction of inequalities, it legitimises them with a meritocratic, false and ambiguous narrative that leads, among other things, to the systematic erosion of the general sense of tax loyalty.

A Civil Pedagogy

Breaking out of this rhetorical trap requires civil pedagogy. Other than meritocracy, here it would be necessary to teach everyone that no one does it alone. That every talent is also the result of luck and the society that nurtures it. That a person's value is not measured by their qualifications or salary, but by how much their work contributes to the well-being of the community in which they live and work. Instead, in the prevailing perspective, citizens are seen first and foremost as consumers. The alternative view, which Sandel calls the 'civic conception' of the common good, instead attributes to work not only the possibility of earning an income, but of expressing our active belonging to a community of people whose esteem and respect we can win through our contribution to the collective well-being.

This is the heart of contributive justice: the ability to respond to the "fundamental human desire to be needed by those with whom we share a life in common". For Sandel, therefore, restarting with contributive justice means restoring dignity to those who work, enhancing the civic dimension of production, overcoming the logic of unlimited consumption. It ultimately means healing a democracy wounded by contempt and indifference.

(*) Professor of Economics, University of Cagliari