“The Promised Land of Meritocracy” The Future of a Delusion
Introduction
Some of us believe our society is meritocratic. Skeptics might disagree, but only a few of those racing to the top investigate, define and finally question the very concept of meritocracy they endorse. Theoretically (1), a society is meritocratic if (a) it binds careers - titles and positions - to skills and talents, excluding any kind of unjust discrimination; (b) it provides equal opportunities; (c) it rewards proportionally with merit. Is, or should it be, our society any close to the thorough realization of these requirements? Is meritocracy real, or desirable?
Meritocracy: Ideal and Praxis in Western Countries
To understand if meritocracy is as engrained in Western society as some believe, let’s take a look to a few examples from US and EU tertiary education. First, a rapid glance at US university admission statistics challenges meritocracy’s reality: “more than two-thirds of students at Ivy League schools come from the top 20 percent of the income scale; at Princeton and Yale, more students come from the top 1 percent than from the entire bottom 60 percent of the country”(2). Moreover, until a few years ago all Ivy League Universities used to require SAT as part of a College application. SAT is an attitudinal test measuring the students’ scholastic aptitude allegedly irrespective of their economic origin, though recent studies argued that its scores actually track family income (3), which made universities acknowledge its discriminating stance and, eventually, abandon it.
If, on the one hand, access to tertiary education looks less impartial than one would expect, on the other European social mobility rates are equally discouraging. Recent studies argue that parental education and occupation are paramount drivers of social inequalities in European countries. Although, other factors like educational policies and reforms, productivity growth, technological progress, the functioning of the welfare, demographic trends and political conflicts have a remarkable impact. Mediterranean and Eastern countries’ higher inequality indicators show that equality of opportunities and economic growth are not in contrast, while universal public education systems may fail in reducing the social divide (4).
Indeed, international social mobility has plummeted since mid-1970s (5). Income from work, welfare and assets persists across generations causing “relative immobility”. However, data shows an exception for Nordic countries, Australia and Canada, where less than 20% of the differences in parental incomes are passed on to the children. On the contrary, this indicator lays between 30 and 50% in Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States (6). Still, these data contradict other analyses that, though finding a broad correspondence between socio-economic inequalities and inequality of opportunities, show counterintuitive exceptions. For instance, US higher social inequality is correlated to a less engrained relative inequality of opportunity than in Italy, which has a less stratified society (7).
Therefore, if the social selection process favours the better off, if opportunities are still a question of privilege, and if merit is as bound to wealth, does meritocracy truly exist? Mentioned data suggest that, even though meritocracy existed, it would be severed from both social mobility and fair opportunities. And yet, liberal democracies have made it one of their core values, raising the question whether meritocracy should be considered a narrative, a desirable solution, or a form of legitimation. Taking into account the afore-mentioned data on social mobility, it is not surprising that most US scholars have been criticising the so-called meritocratic system for decades, from Michael Young’s The Rise of Meritocracy (1958) to Daniel Markovits’ The Meritocracy Trap (2019), passing through the renowned philosophers Pierre Bourdieu, Thomas Nagel, and Michael Sandel. Since this article is focused on the educational and political aspect of contemporary meritocracy, we chose to take into account the last three authors over Young, who displays a literary meritocratic dystopia, and Markovits, who deals specifically with meritocracy in US job market.
Bourdieu’s La Noblesse d’Etat (1989) dives into the Grandes Écoles (Great Schools) network’s social mechanisms and finds out that scholarization is a means to (statistically) reproduce society. Classes tend to ensure a broad reproduction of the socio-economic positions they occupy, making meritocracy both a selection and a legitimation strategy for the élites. Accordingly, meritocracy in France does not provide an opportunity for social mobility, it rather confirms what we could refer to as “republican aristocracy” legitimised by the illusion of a neutral democratic education (8).
These are the milestones of Sandel’s provocative criticism of meritocracy. In his book The Tyranny of Merit (2020), Sandel mobilizes arguments similar to Bourdeiu’s to unmask the staggering incoherence between the meritocratic ideal and the low social mobility rates in the USA. Far from being realized, meritocracy undermines social solidarity. Winners feel individually responsible for their success and ignore circumstances that contributed to their rise, developing a sense of arrogance (hybris). At the bottom of the ladder, instead, “losers” face society’s blame for their insuccess with resentment nourishing populism.
Nonetheless, it has been noted that Sandel is unable to fully ground the causal relationship between meritocratic hybris and the meritocratic setting of society (9). Sandel registers a factual correlation between the USA’s widespread faith in meritocracy and the arrogance of its most affluent citizens, but he does not present conclusive data on the latter’s dependence on the former. Thus, Sandel rejects meritocracy based on the despicable effects of contemporary American poor and unsatisfactory actualization. In other words, Sandel’s arguments fall short in proving that the ideal itself of meritocracy galvanizes the winners into hybris. Rather, to refute the meritocratic ideal, Sandel mobilizes his second set of theses that aim to show that the ideal is flawed in itself. Regardless of its present configuration, the notion of meritocracy is so problematic it becomes both unattractive and unfeasible, as we will try to argue in the next paragraph.
The problems of the ideal.
To fully grasp Sandel’s stance, let’s look at Thomas Nagel’s Equality and Partiality (1991), an essay which attempts to design a more egalitarian society than Western model’s while ensuring individual freedom. In his view, meritocracy as it is, is based on individual and social inequalities and is not even accountable for the values and talents it propels (13). Socio-economic inequalities have five main causes: 1) traditional discrimination based on prejudice; 2) class-based hereditary advantages; 3) talent and natural abilities; 4) individual effort and dedication; 5) luck (10). A meritocratic liberal society should only accept the inequalities arising from the last three sources and strive to mitigate the inequalities produced by discrimination and class (11). However, some might argue that talent and effort also fall outside the scope of individual responsibility. Indeed, as Rawls and Hayek extensively noted (12), while talent may seem randomic, aleatory, and nature-determined (what Rawls calls the “natural lottery”), it is just a matter of luck to have a particular ability that society happens to praise.
Therefore, it is controversial to ascribe talents to individual merit. Moreover, speaking of effort, liberal scholars tend to believe it is the true source of merit, since it solely originates from individual responsibility. Anyone is free to exploit or not the talents nature has endowed them with, since free will exists - they say - and is the intellectual basement to the whole set of liberal democracies’ institutions. However, Rawls remarked that the psychological predispositions to cultivate and refine one’s talents fall outside the span of control of the individual agent, making effort incompatible with any claim of merit (14). Contemporary sociology has followed in his footsteps, analysing how the social environment can open or close opportunities to people regardless of their so-called natural talents. Moreover, cognitive sciences and biology are undermining the concept of free-will, demonstrating that our actions are governed by unconscious cerebral activities (15). Leaving aside the intricate debate on freedom, and though accepting in principle the role of effort in merit, Hayek still underlines that individual effort is unobservable, or at least unmeasurable, therefore it cannot be adopted as an uncontroversial factor of merit (16).
Wielding all the afore-mentioned arguments, Sandel dismisses the ideal of merit and disagrees with the stance that markets should reward talents disregarding their moral connotation (a conclusion shared by Hayek and Rawls). Indeed, Sandel highlights the need to steer markets towards the compensation of those who play a prominent role in the real economy. A policy based on compensation aims at rehabilitating the dignity of work by rewarding the low-wage unspecialized workers - currently disregarded by markets - with tax exemptions for the contribution they give to society. Conversely, other actors that operate at the margins of the real economy (e.g. those that speculate in financial markets) should pay heavier taxes. Nevertheless, Sandel is far from rejecting talents and competences as allocation criteria of titles and positions. And there are good reasons to maintain this position, even though Sandel does not explicitly mention them.
As Nagel points out, the pursuit of excellence is indeed essential for societies, since it is co-implicated with the fight against discrimination and class, both in liberal and socialist structures. If, on the one hand, career paths welcome individuals’ talents, the process of selection should not be based, at least nominally, on anyone’s ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, or census. According to Nagel, blocking an excellence-based social stratification would mean shutting competition down, with disastrous effects on innovation and well-being. Most importantly, it would mean deleting what appears to him the strongest known form of individual motivation: economic reward. Though other incentives such as “reputation”, “acceptance”, “survival”, or “pleasure” may be conceived, they look insufficient to keep the same drive towards self- and collective improvement. As a consequence, Nagel believes that society should maximize both excellence and access, thus maximizing social mobility, not equality, through the recognition and exploitation of natural inequalities; specialization and distinction in education; and the acceptance of variation in accomplishment. Eventually, it is the pursuit of excellence that produces a stratification in society (17).
Conclusion: towards a new interpretation of merit
Following Nagel’s account of merit, the relinquishment of the meritocratic ideal, despite its constraints, would imply the withdrawal of some of the strongest human motivations. The ideal’s capacity to both entice individuals to realize their talents and legitimize the occupation of the most sought-after positions in society should be condoned. Also, a society that would wholly abstract from the notion of merit, would face the blame of being “depressive”, since no individual would be in the position to rejoice at their achievements. Nonetheless, one of the two authors of this article holds that democratic societies should seek different sources of legitimation than that of merit. The other author maintains that the ideal of meritocracy should be preserved as a “noble lie” without which the political and symbolical legitimacy of democracy would be irreversibly erased. But both writers agree that merit is too ingrained in the common sense to be extirpated with a single stroke. Thus, there are some critical issues that today’s public policy should address to make merit more compatible with the requirements of a just and fair talent-based society.
First, decision-makers should design policies to avoid not only social reproduction but also “aristocratic” hybris and populist resentment. To reach this scenario, the exogenous social factors that condition individual talents, like the so-called “endowment effect” (economic resources influence talents) and “preference effect” (families affect individual preferences, ambitions and effort), should be broadly acknowledged. As a consequence, new élites should recognize that the value of their merit is both relative (not absolute or innate) (18) and conventional (market- or society-based). Moreover, society should ensure fair opportunities achieved through a decent social minimum (intervention in health and family policies, education, the labor market, tax and transfer policies, urban planning, housing policies, but also minimum wage and retirement and parenting measures) (19).
Finally, even without abolishing talent/merit-based socio-economic differences, a fairer and juster society should find ways to restore the dignity of those who do not rise to the top enabling them “to flourish in place, and see themselves as members of a common project” (20). What emerges is a socially sustainable concept of merit, where talented people are both rewarded and held accountable for their positive impact on society (21).
References:
Cfr. M. Santambrogio, Il Complotto contro il Merito, 2021.
Sandel 2020, p. 16. See also Sandel’s sources here.
https://hechingerreport.org/students-need-a-boost-in-wealth-more-than-a-boost-in-sat-scores/
Cfr. F. Palmisano, F. Biagi, V. Peragine, Inequality of Opportunity in Tertiary Education: Evidence from Europe, “Research in Higher Education”, 63 (2022), p. 514-65; for the quotation, see p. 519.
Cfr. OECD, A Broken Social Elevator? How to Promote Social Mobility, 2018, p. 269.
Cfr. OECD, Intergenerational Transmission of Disadvantage. Mobility or Immobility across Generations?, 2007, pp. 47-48, 69.
Cfr. P. Bourdieu, La Noblesse d’Etat, 1989.
Cfr. Santambrogio, Il Complotto contro il Merito, 2021.
Cfr. T. Nagel, Equality and Partiality, 1991.
Cfr. T. Nagel 1991, chap. 10.
In Rawls’ view, discrimination may be balanced with “natural liberty” (opening careers to abilities) and class by “liberal equality” (fair equality of opportunities), while the “difference principle” (giving more social help to the worse off) may help reducing inequalities due to individual talents, cfr. J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 1971.
Cfr. F. A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1960, pp. 85-102 and J. Rawls 1971, pp. 73-75.
Cfr. J. Rawls 1971, p. 104.
For a thorough overview of these topics, we direct the reader’s attention to A. Benini, Neurobiologia della volontà, Raffaello Cortina Editore, Milano 2022.
F. A. Hayek 1960, pp. 148-165.
Cfr. T. Nagel, 1991, chap. 12.
Cfr. M. Santambrogio 2021, pp. 154-160.
Cfr. OECD 2018, p. 332.
M. Sandel 2020, p. 209.
Cfr. S. Pizzini, Al di là della meritocrazia: quando il proprio talento può diventare un valore a beneficio di moti, Ph.D. dissertation in “Orientation and Career Counselling for Inclusion, Sustainability and Social Justice”, University of Padova 2022.