Socialism, Capitalism, and Modernity

A review of The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? by Michael J. Sandel.

In a country where opposition forces were long marginalized and dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka faced little serious threat to his rule, Belarus’s 2020 antirevolutionary protest movement has changed the game.

The impulse to have crimes against humanity investigated and punished, like the impulse behind “truth and reconciliation” commissions, is understandable. But legalism cannot supersede the hard and messy work of…