Sam Harris speaks with Michael Sandel about the problem with meritocracy . They discuss the dark side of the concept of merit, the pernicious myth of the self-made man, the moral significance of luck, the backlash against "elites" and expertise, how we value human excellence, the connection between wealth and value creation, the ethics of the tax code, higher education as a sorting mechanism for a caste system, alternatives to 4-year colleges, and other topics. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

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#221 — Success, Failure, & the Common Good

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Sam Harris Episodes Around October 22, 2020

#206 — A Conversation with David Frum

#207 — Can We Pull Back From The Brink?

#208 — Existential Risk

#209 — A Good Life

#210 — The Logic of Doomsday

#211 — The Nature of Human Nature

#212 — A Conversation with Kathryn Paige Harden

#213 — The Worst Epidemic

#214 — A Conversation with Siddhartha Mukherjee

#215 — A Conversation with David Miliband

#216 — A Conversation with Graeme Wood

#217 — The New Religion of Anti-Racism

#218 — Welcome to the Cult Factory

#219 — The Power of Compassion

#220 - The Information Apocalypse

#221 — Success, Failure, & the Common Good

#222 — A Pandemic of Incompetence

#223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan

#224 — The Key to Trump's Appeal

#225 — Republic of Lies

#226 — The Price of Distraction

#227 — Knowing the Mind

Making Sense with Sam Harris

#228 — Doing Good

#229 — A Few Thoughts for a New Year

#230 — An Insurrection of Lies

#231 — Crossing the Abyss

#232 — Inequality and Revolution

#233 — The Groves of Misinformation

#234 — The Divided Mind

#235 — A Call from Ricky Gervais

Summary