Meritocracy - can (and should) it ever exist?

Thanks for this growstuff. This was briefly touched on on the budget thread, and it seems clear that an economic meritocratic system is widely accepted, and hardly questioned in our “progressive” modern society.

I have read quite a bit around this subject and this video explains well how wrong this assumption is. Meritocracy is a smokescreen, and denies the fact that life is largely random, as De Botton says.
No one can choose for example where or what type of family they are born into, and this is just at the outset.

The philosopher Michael Sandel also explores this concept in his book “The Tyranny of Merit” in which he says that it fuels our divisiveness.

Thatcher and Reagan were big on meritocracy, which says a lot!

Meritocracy has more strengths than weaknesses. I don't think the argument about it making people poor and blaming people for lack of success holds water.

Meritocracy is about giving everyone the same chance of success. Obviously not everyone will succeed because some people are not as bright, or not as imaginative or inventive, or not as energetic/strong, etc. So long as a good social care service is available to the 'failers', I don't think it would be fair not to offer everyone the same chance of success.

Equality of opportunity is the aim. There will never be equality of outcome because people have dfferent strengths and gifts and always will. Good social 'cushioning' will ideally make sure everyone has at least what they need.

Meritocracy has more strengths than weaknesses.

If only this were true. The way "meritocracy" is working is a sham. There is nothing equal about our society. The 'idea' of meritocracy does offer those who have no intention of making it work some phrases designed to show that they, at least, are rewarded on merit. They chose to taunt those who have not gained as they have by using an illogical corollary. They say that if they have gained by their merit as they seek to have accepted, then obviously those who have not been rewarded must have no merit. Such thinking is of the Red Queen variety and is so far from the truth.

Not only is this 'equal chance opportunity' a lie, but it has also been deliberately manipulated for the last 40 years. This view ensures those with the least meritable lives can declare they are entitled, by this mythical merit, to have and keep all they have stolen from others.

The idea that anyone ever has expected equality of outcome is a strawman argument. It is like the reverse logic of "I have profited therefore I have merit", serving to distract from what is actually happening. Since 1979 the process of narrowing inequality has reversed sharply. This fairy-tale view has been deliberate and follows a right-wing ethos. Never believe these people accept you are equal to them. Their actions show they do not.

Upward mobility is also becoming a myth. If someone starts life as middle-class they are now more likely to go down rather than up. This is the society we are leaving our children and grandchildren. Many who have benefited from attempts at meritocracy are also complicit in the idea that not everyone should be educated, for education's sake, to the highest level they can achieve. Where is the merit in the person who, because of wealth and background gets an easy pass into the highest level of education where they can be coached through to wealth increasing levels while the talent of those who have less is cast on the slag heap of society?

I suspect there has been a subtle change in what is actually meant by the term "meritocracy" since I first encountered it many decades ago.

In this article, it is assumed that now it means the rise of some people towards the top of any organisation (or of life itself) because they deserve it, and will get rich because of that, and the descent of those who don't rise to the top, and are therefore failures. In a circular argument, the latter "deserve" to get progressively poorer as the more "deserving" pass them on the ladder to wealth and power. Rightwing punitive capitalism, in fact.

My interpretation of meritocracy is one based on the roots of the word -the -cracy part means "rule" and it is a parallel to terms for other words for "rule", like democracy, theocracy, plutocracy, aristocracy and so on.

Aristocracy is rule by "the best" (self-identifying as such!)
Plutocracy is rule by the rich, who can buy power.
Theocracy is rule by religion and religious leaders - who can threaten eternal damnation to those who rebel..
Democracy is rule by"the people" through the ballot box.

Meritocracy, by definition, is rule by "those who deserve to", who are the ones who are best in their field . So the best economists should be in positions like Chancellor of the Exchequer, the best medical experts and strategists should be heading up the NHS, the best negotiators and internationalists should be leading the foreign office, and the best and wisest national leader should be uniting all of these, plus the rest of the country, as Prime Minister.

The problem isn't the basic tenet that the best man/woman for a job of public office should be in it, but the fact that the man/woman who most wants the job is the one lobbying most energetically to get it, whether via attending a prestigious school, joining the most successful political party and trusting the ballot box, or spending wealth accumulated by him/herself in business or inherited, or browbeating the population with stories of hellfire. That is more likely to succeed that sober merit.

The links that should not be there are the current very strong ones between public office, celebrity, and loadsamoney. Merit in public service ought not be comcomitant with the desire to maximise the profits to be gained from the position.

We don't have a meritocray - and there is very little chance of that happening anytime soon, so any perceived dangers of this are not a threat.

The problem as I see meritocracy is that we value the wrong things in society, and what we regard as “success”.
Another YouTube to watch, where Sandel explains better than I can. About 8 mins long.
YouTube. The Tyranny of Meritocracy. (from a TED talk).

Exactly Luckygirl3.

Some babies are advantaged from the day they're born. Parental wealth, education, private tutoring, financial support at university/places bought for them at university (it happens), doors opened to them for work (parents contacts).

Others are born into families with problems of one kind or another, live in deprived areas, parents have low income/food is less nutritious, schools aren't as well funded/good/teachers are under pressure, education stops after school, high unemployment in the UK, horribly low level of unemployment benefit, no social housing.

We are anything but a meritocracy. It isn't a coincidence that we are governed by millionaires and billionaires. It's the 'just us' system.

It’s an uneven playing field, always was and always will be.

Farzanah - I agree - the perception of what constitutes success needs defining. The bias towards a particular definition of success skews attempts to create a meritocracy.

We have had threads on this before.

Whatever happens, societies tend to organse themselves into some hierarch or another, we have tried 'class', now we have 'merit'. What do you suggest for the next attempt, height? eye colour?

Hmmmm.

Kindness and usefulness might be better?

M0nica

We have had threads on this before.

Whatever happens, societies tend to organse themselves into some hierarch or another, we have tried 'class', now we have 'merit'. What do you suggest for the next attempt, height? eye colour?

It would probably be just about as valid as the "I've earned what I have and everybody could do what I (or my forebears) have" arguments.

Every system runs into anomalies and exclusions and people who drop out of the gaps into poverty. The more rigid the system, the more people slip through the cracks, the looser the system, the more opportunity there is for the more grasping or agressive individuals to benefit, at the expense of the ones too honest or timid to grab everything they can reach.

It isn't that pure meritocracy^ , or pure almost any other system, doesn't work, it is that human beings are crafty buggers and will seek out the cracks in the theory and make them big enough to let through some advantage to themselves.

Perhaps we need alternative ladders to "success" for different types of people to climb in parallel with other types, not in competition with them? But how do you define success? And how do you keep the agressively competitive from hogging all the ladders?

Civilised societies construct checks and balances to try to avoid this, which need constant re-evaluation.

Elegran I agree with you. However, I don't think "meritocracy" fits with the other "cracy" words because it's a relatively new term and was used pejoratively. One obvious problem is that the concept of merit is arbitrary.

PS. I posted before I saw your last post. You've explained the biggest problem really well.

Definitions of a successful life would be useful (personal, social and internal, not just financial) plus how to motivate children to aim for that as a goal, without discouraging them from being "the best they can be" in whatever their chosen career or niche?

If everyone focussed purely on their internal life without also fulfilling their responsibilities, a lot of the infrastructure would collapse.

Another problem with meritocracy is that it doesn't take long for an aristocracy to develop. People want the best for their children. Therefore, even if people really do merit the rewards they earn, they leave their children assets when they die and they tend to live in the best housing and buy advantages in education and healthcare. They can afford to give their children nutritious food and give them experiences others can't afford. It's also likely they have networks which can benefit their children. The rewards are then passed down through generations and a new elite emerges.

Elegran

Definitions of a successful life would be useful (personal, social and internal, not just financial) plus how to motivate children to aim for that as a goal, without discouraging them from being "the best they can be" in whatever their chosen career or niche?

If everyone focussed purely on their internal life without also fulfilling their responsibilities, a lot of the infrastructure would collapse.

This is another Alain de Botton video (slightly longer), in which he addresses that issue:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtSE4rglxbY

Thank you, Growstuff I shall look at that later (busy afternoon ahead)

M0nica

We have had threads on this before.

Whatever happens, societies tend to organse themselves into some hierarch or another, we have tried 'class', now we have 'merit'. What do you suggest for the next attempt, height? eye colour?

Class could be defined. Even if we didn't like it, we knew our place in it; we knew what was expected; we knew how the system worked or rather didn't work.

We do not have a meritocratic system. Meritocracy is a political system in which economic goods and/or political power are vested in individual people based on talent, effort, and achievement, rather than wealth or social class. We run a system where there is little chance - less than there was 40 years ago - of someone rising in society based on merit than falling despite it. To have a true meritocracy you have to have equality of opportunity.

We have been moving to the "small government" model otherwise called the "market approach" for 40 years. This does not see the individual and is often approached corruptly by both governments and the "market". That is what we are dealing with, not a meritocracy.

Yes we have a very unequal society Monarchy is at the top of and perpetuates the inequality. A president could be elected on merit chosen the people.

Monarchy stops us getting rid of the House of Lords which should also elected.

There are moves away from monarchy to a republic from the Caribbean countries. Helped along no doubt by Kate and Wills disastrous tour.

Also Australia will have a labour PM soon who is a republican.

So this gives hope that one day we could too could abolish the monarchy and towards a fairer more equal society egalitarian a meritocracy.

I agree with everything Baggs said.

I'm afraid I don't think that abolishing the monarchy would result in a fairer, more equal society. I'm not a monarchist, but I think the royal family is a red herring.

I'm far more concerned about all the people who really believe they deserve what they have and believe the "have nots" don't deserve anything because they're somehow lacking merit.

PS. I honestly don't think Biden or Putin are the best their respective countries could have as leaders.

Indeed. Getting rid of the figurehead of a ship doesn't alter the attitude of the officers and crew if they believe that those who haven't made it to captain or first officer are failures.

I have my doubts too about having a second parliamentary chamber which is selected on exactly the same basis as the first - those who could play the system to enter and rise in one elected chamber will have no problem using the same tactics to dominate the other. The two chambers were originally of different composition, with the HoC being meant as a a balance to the aristocratic HoL I don't know how you can make the second chamber contain a different demographic to the first, but it does need some kind of variation.