Myth of meritocracy

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Myth of meritocracy is a phrase arguing that meritocracy, or achieving upward social mobility through one's own merits regardless of one's social position, is not widely attainable in capitalist societies because of inherent contradictions. [1] Meritocracy is argued to be a myth because, despite being promoted as an open and accessible method of achieving upward class mobility under neoliberal or free market capitalism, wealth disparity and limited class mobility remain widespread, regardless of individual work ethic. [2] [3] [4] [5] Some scholars argue that the wealth disparity has even increased because the "myth" of meritocracy has been so effectively promoted and defended by the political and private elite through the media, education, corporate culture, and elsewhere. [6] [7] [8] Economist Robert Reich argues that many Americans still believe in meritocracy despite "the nation drifting ever-farther away from it." [9]

Contents

History

Issues with meritocracy are not new. The word was coined and popularized as a pejorative but its usage has meliorated. The first known use of the term was by sociologist Alan Fox in the journal Socialist Commentary in 1956. [10] It was then popularized by sociologist Michael Dunlop Young, who used the term in his dystopian political and satirical book The Rise of the Meritocracy in 1958. [11] [12] [13] The word was adopted into the English language without of the negative connotations that Young intended it to have and was embraced by supporters of the philosophy. Young expressed his disappointment in the embrace of this word and philosophy by the Labour Party under Tony Blair in The Guardian in an article in 2001, where he states:

It is good sense to appoint individual people to jobs on their merit. It is the opposite when those who are judged to have merit of a particular kind harden into a new social class without room in it for others. [14]

Inevitability

It has been argued that meritocracy under capitalism will always remain a myth because, as Michael Kinsley states, "Inequalities of income, wealth, status are inevitable, and in a capitalist system even necessary." [1] Even though many economists admit that too much disparity between the rich and the poor can destabilize society politically and economically, increases in wealth disparity under capitalism are expected to grow over time since, and French economist Thomas Piketty argues that capitalism tends to reward the owners of capital with a greater and greater share of the economy's output, while wage-earners get a smaller and smaller share. [15] Rising wealth disparity increasingly undermines faith in the existence of meritocracy, as beliefs in equal opportunity and social equality lose credibility among lower classes who recognize the preexisting reality of limited class mobility as a feature of the neoliberal version of capitalism. [16] [17] At the same time, the elite use their comparatively greater wealth, power, and influence to unequally benefit themselves and ensure their continued upper class status at the expense of lower classes, which further undermines beliefs in the existence of meritocracy. [18] [19]

Cornell University economist Robert H. Frank rejects meritocracy in his book Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy . [20] He describes how chance plays a significant role in deciding who gets what that is not objectively based on merit. He does not discount the importance of talent and hard work, but, using psychological studies, mathematical formulae, and examples, demonstrates that among groups of people performing at a high level, chance (luck) plays an enormous role in an individual's success.

Function

The myth of meritocracy has been identified by scholars[ who? ] as a tool of the elite of a society to uphold and justify the reproduction of existing economic, social, and political hierarchies. [4] [6] [21] [22]

Class mobility

The myth of meritocracy is used to maintain the belief that class mobility is widely attainable. As Daniel Markovits describes, "meritocracy excludes people outside of the elite, excludes middle class people and working class people from schooling, from good jobs, and from status and income, and then insults them by saying that the reason they’re excluded is that they don’t measure up, rather than that there’s a structural block to their inclusion." [19] Furthermore, Markovits explicitly denounces the myth of the purported "American meritocracy", which for him "has become precisely what it was invented to combat: a mechanism for the dynastic transmission of wealth and privilege across generations." [23] Phrases such as "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" have been identified as concealing the myth of meritocracy by placing the onus of upward class mobility solely on the individual while intentionally ignoring structural conditions. [22] The minority of individuals who manage to overcome structural conditions and achieve upward class mobility are used as examples to support the idea that meritocracy exists. [24]

In the United States, people of lower classes are conditioned to believe in meritocracy, despite class mobility in the country being among the lowest in industrialized economies. [25] [22] In the U.S., 50% of a father's income position is inherited by his son. In contrast, the amount in Norway and Canada is less than 20%. Moreover, in the U.S. 8% of children raised in the bottom 20% of the income distribution are able to climb to the top 20% as adults, while the figure in Denmark is nearly double at 15%. [26] According to an academic study on why Americans overestimate class mobility, "research indicates that errors in social perception are driven by both informational factors—such as the lack of awareness of statistical information relevant to actual mobility trends—and motivational factors—the desire to believe that society is meritocratic." [24] Americans are more inclined to believe in meritocracy out of the prospect that they will one day join the elite or upper class. Scholars have paralleled this belief to John Steinbeck's notable quote that "the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” [27] As academic Tad Delay states, "the fantasy of class mobility, of becoming bourgeois , is enough to defend the aristocracy." [22]

In India, the myth of meritocracy has been identified as a mechanism for the elite to justify the structure of the caste system. [21]

Racism

The concept of meritocracy has been suggested as a tool against affirmative action policies. [4] [28] [29] Subjectively, the belief that the United States is a meritocracy is most accepted as an accurate reflection of reality among young, upper class, whites and Asians and least accepted as an accurate reflection of reality among older, working class, people of color. [30]

Tyranny of merit

Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel in his latest book (2020) makes a case against meritocracy, calling it a "tyranny". Ongoing stalled social mobility and increasing inequality are laying bare the crass delusion of the American Dream, and the promise "you can make it if you want and try". The latter, according to Sandel, is the main culprit of the anger and frustration which brought some Western countries towards populism. [31] [32]

See also

Related Research Articles

Meritocracy is the notion of a political system in which economic goods or political power are vested in individual people based on ability and talent, rather than wealth or social class. Advancement in such a system is based on performance, as measured through examination or demonstrated achievement. Although the concept of meritocracy has existed for centuries, the first known use of the term was by sociologist Alan Fox in the journal Socialist Commentary in 1956. It was then popularized by sociologist Michael Dunlop Young, who used the term in his dystopian political and satirical book The Rise of the Meritocracy in 1958. While the word was coined and popularized as a pejorative, its usage has meliorated. Today the term is often utilised to refer to social systems in which personal advancement and success primarily reflect an individual's capabilities and merits, frequently seen as equality of opportunity.

Productivism or growthism is the belief that measurable productivity and growth are the purpose of human organization, and that "more production is necessarily good". Critiques of productivism center primarily on the limits to growth posed by a finite planet and extend into discussions of human procreation, the work ethic, and even alternative energy production.

Equal opportunity is a state of fairness in which individuals are treated similarly, unhampered by artificial barriers, prejudices, or preferences, except when particular distinctions can be explicitly justified. For example, the intent of equal employment opportunity is that the important jobs in an organization should go to the people who are most qualified – persons most likely to perform ably in a given task – and not go to persons for reasons deemed arbitrary or irrelevant, such as circumstances of birth, upbringing, having well-connected relatives or friends, religion, sex, ethnicity, race, caste, or involuntary personal attributes such as disability, age.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Economic inequality</span> Distribution of income or wealth between different groups

Economic inequality is an umbrella term for a) income inequality or distribution of income, b) wealth inequality or distribution of wealth, and c) consumption inequality. Each of these can be measured between two or more nations, within a single nation, or between and within sub-populations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Dream</span> National ethos of the United States

"The American Dream" is a phrase referring to a purported national ethos of the United States: that every person has the freedom and opportunity to succeed and attain a better life. The phrase was popularized by James Truslow Adams during the Great Depression in 1931, and has had different meanings over time. Originally, the emphasis was on democracy, liberty and equality, but more recently has been on achieving material wealth and upward mobility.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social mobility</span> Mobility to move social classes

Social mobility is the movement of individuals, families, households or other categories of people within or between social strata in a society. It is a change in social status relative to one's current social location within a given society. This movement occurs between layers or tiers in an open system of social stratification. Open stratification systems are those in which at least some value is given to achieved status characteristics in a society. The movement can be in a downward or upward direction. Markers for social mobility such as education and class, are used to predict, discuss and learn more about an individual or a group's mobility in society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Sandel</span> American political philosopher (born 1953)

Michael Joseph Sandel is an American political philosopher and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University, where his course Justice was the university's first course to be made freely available online and on television. It has been viewed by tens of millions of people around the world, including in China, where Sandel was named the 2011's "most influential foreign figure of the year".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criticism of capitalism</span> Arguments against the economic system of capitalism

Criticism of capitalism is a critique of political economy that involves the rejection of, or dissatisfaction with the economic system of capitalism and its outcomes. Criticisms typically range from expressing disagreement with particular aspects or outcomes of capitalism to rejecting the principles of the capitalist system in its entirety.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Economic mobility</span> Ability to improve ones economic status

Economic mobility is the ability of an individual, family or some other group to improve their economic status—usually measured in income. Economic mobility is often measured by movement between income quintiles. Economic mobility may be considered a type of social mobility, which is often measured in change in income.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Income inequality in the United States</span>

Income inequality has fluctuated considerably in the United States since measurements began around 1915, moving in an arc between peaks in the 1920s and 2000s, with a 30-year period of relatively lower inequality between 1950 and 1980.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social inequality</span> Uneven distribution of resources in a society

Social inequality occurs when resources within a society are distributed unevenly, often as a result of inequitable allocation practices that create distinct unequal patterns based on socially defined categories of people. Differences in accessing social goods within society are influenced by factors like power, religion, kinship, prestige, race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, intelligence and class. Social inequality usually implies the lack of equality of outcome, but may alternatively be conceptualized as a lack of equality in access to opportunity.

Redistribution of income and wealth is the transfer of income and wealth from some individuals to others through a social mechanism such as taxation, welfare, public services, land reform, monetary policies, confiscation, divorce or tort law. The term typically refers to redistribution on an economy-wide basis rather than between selected individuals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Piketty</span> French economist (born 1971)

Thomas Piketty is a French economist who is a professor of economics at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, associate chair at the Paris School of Economics (PSE) and Centennial Professor of Economics in the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics (LSE).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Socioeconomic mobility in the United States</span> Social and economic class mobility

Socioeconomic mobility in the United States refers to the upward or downward movement of Americans from one social class or economic level to another, through job changes, inheritance, marriage, connections, tax changes, innovation, illegal activities, hard work, lobbying, luck, health changes or other factors.

Justice and the market is an ethical perspective based upon the allocation of scarce resources within a society. The allocation of resources depends upon governmental policies and the societal attitudes of the individuals who exist within the society. Personal perspectives are based upon ones circle of moral concern or those who the individual deems worthy of moral consideration.

Socio-economic mobility in Canada refers to the movement of Canadians from one social class or economic level to another, The data shows an increase in intergenerational social mobility, however it is argued that such trends have remained stable since the 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Gatsby Curve</span> Relates income inequality and income mobility

The "Great Gatsby Curve" is the term given to the positive empirical relationship between cross-sectional income inequality and persistence of income across generations. The scatter plot shows a correlation between income inequality in a country and intergenerational income mobility.

<i>Capital in the Twenty-First Century</i> 2013 book by economist Thomas Piketty

Capital in the Twenty-First Century is a book written by French economist Thomas Piketty. It focuses on wealth and income inequality in Europe and the United States since the 18th century. It was first published in French in August 2013; an English translation by Arthur Goldhammer followed in April 2014.

<i>The Rise of the Meritocracy</i> 1958 book by Michael Young

The Rise of the Meritocracy is a book by British sociologist and politician Michael Dunlop Young which was first published in 1958. It describes a dystopian society in a future United Kingdom in which merit has become the central tenet of society, replacing previous divisions of social class and creating a society stratified between a meritorious power-holding elite and a disenfranchised underclass of the less meritorious. The essay satirised the Tripartite System of education that was being practised at the time. The narrative of the book ends in 2034 with a revolt against the meritocratic elite by the "Populists".

Daniel Markovits is the Guido Calabresi Professor of Law at the Yale Law School and the founding director of the Yale Center for the Study of Private Law. He is the author of The Meritocracy Trap (2019).

References

  1. 1 2 Kinsley, Michael (18 January 1990). "The Myth of Meritocracy". The Washington Post .
  2. ↑ Castilla, Emilio J.; Benard, Stephen (2010). "The Paradox of Meritocracy in Organizations". Administrative Science Quarterly . 55 (4): 543–676. doi:10.2189/asqu.2010.55.4.543. hdl: 1721.1/65884 . S2CID   1016312.
  3. ↑ Morgan, John; Tumlinson, Justin; Várdy, Felix (2022). "The limits of meritocracy". Journal of Economic Theory . 201: 105414. doi:10.1016/j.jet.2022.105414. hdl: 10871/129789 .
  4. 1 2 3 Cooper, Jewell E.; He, Ye; Levin, Barbara B. (2011). Developing Critical Cultural Competence: A Guide for 21st-Century Educators. SAGE Publications. pp. 14–15. ISBN   9781452269276.
  5. ↑ Grover, Ed (25 October 2017). "The myth of meritocracy is increasing inequality, book argues". PHYS.org.
  6. 1 2 Littler, Jo (2017). Against Meritocracy: Culture, power and myths of mobility. Routledge. p. 139. doi:10.4324/9781315712802. ISBN   9781138889552. Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  7. ↑ Markovits, Daniel (9 July 2019). "How the 'meritocracy' feeds inequality". CNN .
  8. ↑ Cooper, Marianne (1 December 2015). "The False Promise of Meritocracy". The Atlantic .
  9. ↑ Reich, Robert (15 April 2019). "Robert Reich: The myth of meritocracy". Salon.
  10. ↑ Littler, Jo (2018). Against Meritocracy: Culture, Power, and Myths of Mobility. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. p. 32. ISBN   978-1-138-88954-5.
  11. ↑ Fox, Margalit (25 January 2002). "Michael Young, 86, Scholar; Coined, Mocked 'Meritocracy'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 7 November 2016. Retrieved 19 February 2017.
  12. ↑ Mijs, Jonathan J.B.; Savage, Mike (2020). "Meritocracy, Elitism and Inequality". The Political Quarterly . 91 (2): 397–404. doi: 10.1111/1467-923X.12828 . hdl: 1765/135370 .
  13. ↑ Sachs-Cobbe, Benjamin (2023). "Recent Work on Meritocracy". Analysis . 83 (1): 171–185. doi: 10.1093/analys/anac091 . hdl: 10023/28168 .
  14. ↑ "Down with meritocracy".
  15. ↑ Ydstie, John (18 May 2014). "The Merits Of Income Inequality: What's The Right Amount?". NPR .
  16. ↑ Thrasher, Steven W. (5 December 2015). "Income inequality happens by design. We can't fix it by tweaking capitalism". The Guardian .
  17. ↑ Hasanov, Fuad; Izraeli, Oded (February 2012). "How Much Inequality Is Necessary for Growth?". Harvard Business Review .
  18. ↑ Levitz, Eric (20 September 2019). "Harvard's Affirmative Action for Rich Whites Exposes Myth of Meritocracy". New York Mag .
  19. 1 2 Francis, Lizzy (20 September 2019). "The Myth of Meritocracy Is The Real Criminal In The College Admissions Scandal". Fatherly .
  20. ↑ Princeton University Press, 2016
  21. 1 2 Nathan, Andrew J. (May 2020). "The Caste of Merit: Engineering Education in India". Foreign Affairs.
  22. 1 2 3 4 Delay, Tad (2019). Against: What Does the White Evangelical Want?. Cascade Books. p. 140. ISBN   9781532668463.
  23. ↑ Cited in: Appiah, Kwame Anthony (19 October 2018). "The myth of meritocracy: who really gets what they deserve?". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 July 2021.
  24. 1 2 Kraus, Michael W.; Tan, Jacinth J.X. (May 2015). "Americans overestimate social class mobility". Journal of Experimental Social Psychology . 58: 101–111. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2015.01.005 . S2CID   145796186.
  25. ↑ Gould, Elise (10 October 2012). "U.S. lags behind peer countries in mobility". Economic Policy Institute .
  26. ↑ Rank, Mark R; Eppard, Lawrence M (13 March 2021). "The American Dream of upward mobility is broken. Look at the numbers". The Guardian.
  27. ↑ Alesina, Alberto; Stantcheva, Stefanie; Teso, Edoardo (2018). "Intergenerational Mobility and Preferences for Redistribution". American Economic Review . 108 (2): 521–554. doi: 10.1257/aer.20162015 . S2CID   33408213.
  28. ↑ Halley, Jean O'Malley; Eshleman, Amy; Mahadevan Vijaya, Ramya (2011). Seeing White: An Introduction to White Privilege and Race. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 191–192. ISBN   9781442203075.
  29. ↑ Cock, Jacklyn; Bernstein, Alison R. (2002). Melting Pots & Rainbow Nations: Conversations about Difference in the United States and South Africa . University of Illinois Press. pp.  34. ISBN   9780252070273.
  30. ↑ Reynolds, Jeremy (June 2014). "Perceptions of meritocracy in the land of opportunity". Research in Social Stratification and Mobility . 36: 121–137. doi:10.1016/j.rssm.2014.03.001 – via ScienceDirect.
  31. ↑ Sandel, Michael. The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2020. ISBN   9780374289980.
  32. ↑ Coman, Julian (6 September 2020). "Michael Sandel: 'The populist backlash has been a revolt against the tyranny of merit'". The Guardian.
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