We argue that the compelling critical perspective put forward by Michael Sandel in The Tyranny of Merit could benefit from the account of power that Cut Loose advanced in its earlier typology. First, the ways that principles of meritocracy serve the interests of particular social groups become clearer when we consider more fully the tensions that inherently exist between merit and other conceptions of the good. Second, the allure of these competing moral perspectives – above all, fraternal morality – helps us make sense of the turn toward nativist populism that we have seen in the United States and elsewhere. Amid the steady unraveling of religious and republican ties, a White working class has responded to its relative economic decline, in part, by seeking solace in ethnocentrism. Third, we argue that the morality of grace can offer an alternative source of existential meaning, which meritocracy – with its focus on contentless excellence – lacks, and which egalitarianism – with its materialist and secular viewpoint – often struggles to cultivate. Here, we turn to Sandel’s earlier book, What Money Can’t Buy, for inspiration, seeing grace as not just the absence of a meritocratic ethic of merciless competition, but a source of value, fulfillment, and connection in itself. We end our essay with a description of what such an economy and politics of grace might look like.

Power is the ability to realize one's will in spite of resistance from others. Max Weber argued that three types of social resources – distributed on the basis of class (economic), status (sociocultural), and party (political) – could be employed to exert power. Karl Marx had earlier asserted the primacy of class, defined as a person's relationship to the means of production, but Weber complicated this picture through an analysis of the ways that social, cultural, and political considerations could both deepen and subvert class stratification. The global spread of democracy and capitalism initially increased social mobility and dispersed power more widely, including to groups that lacked economic resources but wielded power derived from prestige or the support of political organizations. In modern societies, however, elites have increasingly been able to parlay their economic advantages into cultural and political influence, renewing the interlocks between these spheres of power.

Early progressives in the mid‐nineteenth century developed the cottage, or family, prison system to move difficult and abandoned youth into smaller, cottage facilities run by houseparents or caretakers. Today, these youth, cottage prison systems are intended to be supportive, family‐based treatment centers that consist of small residential buildings typically housing 20–30 inmates and often in rural geographic regions with “cottage parents” or trained staff for rehabilitation.

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