The Meritocracy is the new face of inequality

Meritocracy is such an intuitive concept that defining it feels redundant. Politicians across the ideological spectrum continually return to the idea that the great rewards of life: money, power, jobs…university admissions, should be distributed according to skill and effort. The ‘even playing field’, they call it, where little players in this grand political game rise to positions that fit their ‘merit’.
Conceptually, the meritocracy is the opposite of systems like monarchy i.e hereditary wealth and advantage are based on merit not a windfall of external events. And although it is widely held, the belief that merit rather than luck determines success in this world is demonstrably false. This flaw in this belief stems from the fact that merit itself is a result of luck. The merit in question depends a great deal on one’s parents, their parents and upbringing.
When I say this, it is nothing against the rags to riches success stories we see around us. Bill Gates’, Albert Einstein’s, the newspaper man’s son’s stellar success. These people beat the system and I congratulate them for it. But what of Bill Gates children vs your children. For sure, Bill Gates child is going to end up at Harvard or another such ‘prestigious’ university. Based on talent, maybe… but did that talent originate from the private schools and fancy tutors, and dad’s connections. Again, this is nothing against Bill Gates and his kids but here’s when I come back to luck intervening by granting people merit. Sure, the industry rewards successful people, however it does show us that the link between merit and one’s life outcome is barely indirect at best.
What I have stated is unsurprising, and most people are nodding their head. Yet everyone buys into this meritocracy and participates in this competition. This is even more surprising because inequality is the core of the meritocracy. The ‘even playing field’ is intended to avoid unfair inequalities based on gender, race, socio-economic standings, and the like. It’s ironic really because a meritocracy is an attempt to eliminate these kinds of inequalities but lands up causing them.
We can start to think of this as early as college admissions. Brrrr. After reading articles about what goes on inside prestigious college institution admission rooms, I am so confused about how I’m even here at UNC. To get into a prestigious institution you need to be flawless, never experience anything but success, you need to have hobbies such as sailing, or water polo or rowing, you need to be and, in their words, ‘well rounded or really pointy’. When does an average person ever have the resources to pursue such niche, expensive hobbies? If they fail, they don’t have their parents’ money to cover their mistakes up. They don’t have SAT tutors who feed you that perfect score.
I once heard that the ‘SAT measures income not academic ability’, and I don’t think I’ve agreed with a statement more.
The meritocracy is widening this gap between the elite and the average person. Only a select few people get into Harvard. This scarcity issue is manufactured, spots at Harvard aren’t valuable… they’re scarce. With their money they could double their student population but to maintain Harvard as Harvard and to make this path to the elite narrower and narrower they don’t.
So, we’ve established the meritocracy paradox and the spiraling inequality that stems from it.What now?
The first step in my eyes is recognizing the flaws in our meritocratic system. Acknowledging on a political level that privilege, and systemic advantages and disadvantages play a greater if not equal role as merit in defining one’s life outcome is essential. Then efforts must be made to actually create a level playing field.
The first, most important way is education. As of today, elite universities, prestigious private high schools to elementary schools provide intensive educations almost exclusively to the wealthy (already elite). I don’t see any reason why these institutions can’t educate 2 or even 3 times the students they do now, and why these new students can’t be from outside the elite circles. This would help widen this narrowing path to a good education across the country and would create more opportunities for more and more people. At the same time the elite aura around these schools would reduce.
I think this will have the most brilliant chain reaction of all. Less stress for students, collaboration rather than cutthroat competition, freedom to actually make mistakes, and best of all encouraging them to be who they want rather than a textbook student that these institutions do.
Even later in life, as these new group of students grow older, they are likely to be happier and pursuing passion rather than prestige. There would more space for everyone, and instead of the top 5%, we all would be better off.
The second is fiscal policy. Only when the law is on the side of the middle-class man will he actually have a shot at success. I am talking about income taxes. A study found that ‘middle class labor is the highest-taxed factor of production in our economy’. We are in a technological revolution where the rewards to replace these people with super skilled workers (the elite) or robots is greater than hiring them. The proposal I talk of is to switch this. Create incentives to hire these workers, create new technologies that a) create more jobs, and b) help these workers.
I will stress again, that these solutions in no mean will magically solve the meritocracy, as of now nothing can. Humans will always be selfish and crave to be elite. As a species we are power hungry and greedy. So, there is no stopping it. However, making it a better meritocracy and eliminating some of the problems like inequality through these solutions would be a start.
Throughout this essay I have overused words such as elite and prestige. The sooner these words stop becoming people’s life goals will be the sooner we are to eliminating meritocratic inequality. Only by acknowledging and addressing these flaws can societies move closer to achieving true equality and justice.
Bibliography:
1. Markovits, D. (2020, January 9). How meritocracy worsens inequality-and makes even
the rich miserable. Yale Insights. https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/how-meritocracyworsens-
inequality-and-makes-even-the-rich-miserable
2. Sandel, M. J. (2021). HOW MERITOCRACY FUELS INEQUALITY—PART I The
Tyranny of Merit: An Overview. American Journal of Law and Equality, 1, 4–
14. https://doi.org/10.1162/ajle_a_00024
3. Deresiewicz, W. (2023, November 15). Don’t Send Your Kid to the Ivy League. The New
Republic. https://newrepublic.com/article/118747/ivy-league-schools-are-overrated-sendyour-
kids-elsewhere