'This book flips your world upside down. Daniel Markovits argues that meritocracy isn't a virtuous, efficient system that rewards the best and brightest. Instead it rewards middle-class families who can afford huge investments in their children's education ... Frightening, eye-opening stuff' The Times, Books of the Year\nEven in the midst of runaway economic inequality and dangerous social division, it remains an axiom of modern life that meritocracy reigns supreme and promises to open opportunity to all. The idea that reward should follow ability and effort is so entrenched in our psyche that, even as society divides itself at almost every turn, all sides can be heard repeating meritocratic notions. Meritocracy cuts to the heart of who we think we are.\nBut what if, both up and down the social ladder, meritocracy is a sham? Today, meritocracy has become exactly what it was conceived to resist: a mechanism for the concentration and dynastic transmission of wealth and privilege across generations. Upward mobility has become a fantasy, and the embattled middle classes are now more likely to sink into the working poor than to rise into the professional elite. At the same time, meritocracy now ensnares even those who manage to claw their way to the top, requiring rich adults to work with crushing intensity, exploiting their expensive educations in order to extract a return. All this is not the result of deviations or retreats from meritocracy but rather stems directly from meritocracy's successes.\nThis is the radical argument that The Meritocracy Trap prosecutes with rare force, comprehensive research, and devastating persuasion. Daniel Markovits, a law professor trained in philosophy and economics, is better placed than most to puncture one of the dominant ideas of our age. Having spent his life at elite universities, he knows from the inside the corrosive system we are trapped within, as well as how we can take the first steps towards a world that might afford us both prosperity and dignity.

The Meritocracy Trap

Biographies & Memoirs

Markovits, Daniel

Professionals & Academics

Penguin

The Meritocracy Trap: How our Modern Ideal is Feeding Inequality, Dismantling the Middle Class and Devouring the Elite

Business & Money

Economics

Allen Lane.

A Modern Legal Ethics: Adversary Advocacy in a Democratic Age

A Modern Legal Ethics proposes a wholesale renovation of legal ethics, one that contributes to ethical thought generally.
 Daniel Markovits reinterprets the positive law governing lawyers to identify fidelity as its organizing ideal. Unlike ordinary loyalty, fidelity requires lawyers to repress their personal judgments concerning the truth and justice of their clients' claims. Next, the book asks what it is like--not psychologically but ethically--to practice law subject to the self-effacement that fidelity demands. Fidelity requires lawyers to lie and to cheat on behalf of their clients. However, an ethically profound interest in integrity gives lawyers reason to resist this characterization of their conduct. Any legal ethics adequate to the complexity of lawyers' lived experience must address the moral dilemmas immanent in this tension. The dominant approaches to legal ethics cannot. Finally, A Modern Legal Ethics reintegrates legal ethics into political philosophy in a fashion commensurate to lawyers' central place in political practice. Lawyerly fidelity supports the authority of adjudication and thus the broader project of political legitimacy.
 Throughout, the book rejects the casuistry that dominates contemporary applied ethics in favor of an interpretive method that may be mimicked in other areas. Moreover, because lawyers practice at the hinge of modern morals and politics, the book's interpretive insights identify--in an unusually pure and intense form--the moral and political conditions of all modernity.

Ethics & Professional Responsibility

Princeton University Press

A revolutionary new argument from eminent Yale Law professor Daniel Markovits attacking the false promise of meritocracy It is an axiom of American life that advantage should be earned through ability and effort. Even as the country divides itself at every turn, the meritocratic ideal – that social and economic rewards should follow achievement rather than breeding – reigns supreme. Both Democrats and Republicans insistently repeat meritocratic notions. Meritocracy cuts to the heart of who we are. It sustains the American dream. But what if, both up and down the social ladder, meritocracy is a sham? Today, meritocracy has become exactly what it was conceived to resist: a mechanism for the concentration and dynastic transmission of wealth and privilege across generations. Upward mobility has become a fantasy, and the embattled middle classes are now more likely to sink into the working poor than to rise into the professional elite. At the same time, meritocracy now ensnares even those who manage to claw their way to the top, requiring rich adults to work with crushing intensity, exploiting their expensive educations in order to extract a return. All this is not the result of deviations or retreats from meritocracy but rather stems directly from meritocracy’s successes. This is the radical argument that Daniel Markovits prosecutes with rare force. Markovits is well placed to expose the sham of meritocracy. Having spent his life at elite universities, he knows from the inside the corrosive system we are trapped within. Markovits also knows that, if we understand that meritocratic inequality produces near-universal harm, we can cure it. When The Meritocracy Trap reveals the inner workings of the meritocratic machine, it also illuminates the first steps outward, towards a new world that might once again afford dignity and prosperity to the American people.

The Meritocracy Trap: How America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite

Penguin Press

A revolutionary new argument from eminent Yale Law professor Daniel Markovits attacking the false promise of meritocracy\nIt is an axiom of American life that advantage should be earned through ability and effort. Even as the country divides itself at every turn, the meritocratic ideal – that social and economic rewards should follow achievement rather than breeding – reigns supreme. Both Democrats and Republicans insistently repeat meritocratic notions. Meritocracy cuts to the heart of who we are. It sustains the American dream.\nBut what if, both up and down the social ladder, meritocracy is a sham? Today, meritocracy has become exactly what it was conceived to resist: a mechanism for the concentration and dynastic transmission of wealth and privilege across generations. Upward mobility has become a fantasy, and the embattled middle classes are now more likely to sink into the working poor than to rise into the professional elite. At the same time, meritocracy now ensnares even those who manage to claw their way to the top, requiring rich adults to work with crushing intensity, exploiting their expensive educations in order to extract a return. All this is not the result of deviations or retreats from meritocracy but rather stems directly from meritocracy’s successes.\nThis is the radical argument that Daniel Markovits prosecutes with rare force. Markovits is well placed to expose the sham of meritocracy. Having spent his life at elite universities, he knows from the inside the corrosive system we are trapped within. Markovits also knows that, if we understand that meritocratic inequality produces near-universal harm, we can cure it. When The Meritocracy Trap reveals the inner workings of the meritocratic machine, it also illuminates the first steps outward, towards a new world that might once again afford dignity and prosperity to the American people.

Penguin??Books

The book proposes a fundamentally new way of teaching contract law: it simultaneously presents a more systematic and coherent elaboration of contract doctrine than other contacts casebooks and develops a more rigorous interdisciplinary approach to thinking about law generally. The aim of the book is to present a doctrinally integrated, interdisciplinary approach to contract law in a rigorous, open, and systematic fashion.This casebook replaces the conventional approach with an effort to elaborate the doctrinal structure of contract law in an orderly way and, at the same time, to introduce students in a systematic way to a wide range of methods of legal analysis. The materials in the book therefore present a holistic account of contract law, in which doctrines from various areas of the law are linked together, and the relations among them explained. The explanations sound both in traditional doctrinal legal analysis and in ideas taken from economics, sociology, and philosophy.

Contract Law and Legal Methods (University Casebook Series)

Business

Foundation Press

Contracts: Law, Theory, and Practice has two principal ambitions: first, to present the basic doctrine of contracts in a comprehensive and coherent fashion; and second, to encourage a rigorous and interdisciplinary approach to thinking about the values and principles that inspire the law. The book provides a systematic survey of contract law while weaving in perspectives from economics, philosophy, sociology, and legal theory, to show how these disciplines can be used to both illuminate and criticize the law as it stands. The book’s treatments of “law and” ideas are designed to be free-standing, making the book an excellent introduction to interdisciplinary legal thought for students without prior training in other fields.

Contracts: Law, Theory, and Practice (University Casebook Series)

Rauterberg, Gabriel

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Markovits, Daniel. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Markovits, Daniel

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Markovits, Daniel. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Meritocracy Trap

The Meritocracy Trap: How our Modern Ideal is Feeding Inequality, Dismantling the Middle Class and Devouring the Elite

A Modern Legal Ethics: Adversary Advocacy in a Democratic Age

A Modern Legal Ethics: Adversary Advocacy in a Democratic Age

The Meritocracy Trap: How America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite

The Meritocracy Trap: How America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite

Contract Law and Legal Methods (University Casebook Series)

Contracts: Law, Theory, and Practice (University Casebook Series)