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Meritocracy (''merit'', from
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, and ''-cracy'', from
Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
'strength, power') is the notion of a political system in which
economic goods In economics, goods are items that satisfy human wants and provide utility, for example, to a consumer making a purchase of a satisfying product. A common distinction is made between goods which are transferable, and services, which are not tra ...
and/or
political power In social science and politics, power is the social production of an effect that determines the capacities, actions, beliefs, or conduct of actors. Power does not exclusively refer to the threat or use of force ( coercion) by one actor agains ...
are vested in individual people based on talent, effort, and achievement, rather than wealth or
social class A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...
. 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 Michael Dunlop Young, Baron Young of Dartington (9 August 1915 – 14 January 2002), was a British sociologist, social activist and politician who coined the term "meritocracy". He was an urbanist of different dimensions such as academic resear ...
, who used the term in his dystopian political and satirical book ''
The Rise of the Meritocracy ''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 intelligence and merit have become the ...
'' in 1958.


Definitions


Early definitions

Meritocracy was most famously argued by Plato, in his book '' The Republic'' and stood to become one of the foundations of politics in the Western world. The "most common definition of meritocracy conceptualizes merit in terms of tested competency and ability, and most likely, as measured by IQ or standardized achievement tests". In government and other administrative systems, "meritocracy" refers to a system under which advancement within the system turns on "merits", like performance, intelligence, credentials, and education. These are often determined through evaluations or examinations. In a more general sense, meritocracy can refer to any form of evaluation based on achievement. Like "
utilitarian In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals. Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different charac ...
" and "
pragmatic Pragmatism is a philosophical movement. Pragmatism or pragmatic may also refer to: *Pragmaticism, Charles Sanders Peirce's post-1905 branch of philosophy *Pragmatics, a subfield of linguistics and semiotics *''Pragmatics'', an academic journal in ...
", the word "meritocratic" has also developed a broader connotation, and is sometimes used to refer to any government run by "a ruling or influential class of educated or able people". This is in contrast to the original, condemnatory use of the term in 1958 by
Michael Dunlop Young Michael Dunlop Young, Baron Young of Dartington (9 August 1915 – 14 January 2002), was a British sociologist, social activist and politician who coined the term "meritocracy". He was an urbanist of different dimensions such as academic resear ...
in his work "''
The Rise of the Meritocracy ''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 intelligence and merit have become the ...
''", who was satirizing the ostensibly merit-based
Tripartite System The Tripartite System was the arrangement of state-funded secondary education between 1945 and the 1970s in England and Wales, and from 1947 to 2009 in Northern Ireland. It was an administrative implementation of the Education Act 1944 and th ...
of education practiced in the United Kingdom at the time; he claimed that, in the Tripartite System, "merit is equated with intelligence-plus-effort, its possessors are identified at an early age and selected for appropriate intensive education, and there is an obsession with quantification, test-scoring, and qualifications". Meritocracy in its wider sense, may be any general act of judgment upon the basis of various demonstrated merits; such acts frequently are described in
sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...
and
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
. In
rhetoric Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate parti ...
, the demonstration of one's merit regarding mastery of a particular subject is an essential task most directly related to the Aristotelian term ''
Ethos Ethos ( or ) is a Greek word meaning "character" that is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology; and the balance between caution, and passion. The Greeks also used this word to refer to ...
''. The equivalent Aristotelian conception of meritocracy is based upon
aristocratic Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'. At the time of the word' ...
or
oligarchic Oligarchy (; ) is a conceptual form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics, such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, or corporate, r ...
structures, rather than in the context of the modern
state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...
.


More recent definitions

In the United States, the assassination of President
James A. Garfield James Abram Garfield (November 19, 1831 – September 19, 1881) was the 20th president of the United States, serving from March 4, 1881 until his death six months latertwo months after he was shot by an assassin. A lawyer and Civil War gene ...
in 1881 prompted the replacement of the American
spoils system In politics and government, a spoils system (also known as a patronage system) is a practice in which a political party, after winning an election, gives government jobs to its supporters, friends (cronyism), and relatives (nepotism) as a reward ...
with a meritocracy. In 1883, The
Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act is a United States federal law passed by the 47th United States Congress and signed into law by President Chester A. Arthur on January 16, 1883. The act mandates that most positions within the federal govern ...
was passed, stipulating government jobs should be awarded on the basis of merit through competitive exams, rather than ties to politicians or political affiliation. The most common form of meritocratic screening found today is the college degree. Higher education is an imperfect meritocratic screening system for various reasons, such as lack of uniform standards worldwide, lack of scope (not all occupations and processes are included), and lack of access (some talented people never have an opportunity to participate because of the expense, most especially in
developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...
). Nonetheless, academic degrees serve some amount of meritocratic screening purpose in the absence of a more refined methodology. Education alone, however, does not constitute a complete system, as meritocracy must automatically confer power and authority, which a degree does not accomplish independently.
Ray Dalio Raymond Thomas Dalio (born August 8, 1949) is an American billionaire investor and hedge fund manager, who has served as co-chief investment officer of the world's largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, since 1985. He founded Bridgewater i ...
uses the term "idea meritocracy" for a system that promotes good ideas rather than just the originator.


Etymology

Although the concept has existed for centuries, the term "meritocracy" is relatively new. It was first used pejoratively by sociologist Alan Fox in 1956, and then by British politician and sociologist Michael Dunlop Young in his 1958 satirical essay ''The Rise of the Meritocracy''. Young's essay pictured the United Kingdom under the rule of a government favouring intelligence and aptitude (merit) above all else, being the combination of the root of Latin origin "merit" (from "mereō" meaning "earn") and the Ancient Greek suffix "-cracy" (meaning "power", "rule"). The ''purely'' Greek word is axiocracy (αξιοκρατία), from axios (αξιος, worthy) + "-cracy" (-κρατία, power). In this book the term had distinctly negative connotations as Young questioned both the legitimacy of the selection process used to become a member of this elite and the outcomes of being ruled by such a narrowly defined group. The essay, written in the first person by a fictional historical narrator in 2034, interweaves history from the politics of pre- and post-war Britain with those of fictional future events in the short (1960 onward) and long term (2020 onward). The essay was based upon the tendency of the then-current governments, in their striving toward intelligence, to ignore shortcomings and upon the failure of education systems to utilize correctly the gifted and talented members within their societies. Young's fictional narrator explains that, on the one hand, the greatest contributor to society is not the "stolid mass" or majority, but the "creative minority" or members of the "restless elite". On the other hand, he claims that there are casualties of progress whose influence is underestimated and that, from such stolid adherence to natural science and intelligence, arises arrogance and complacency. This problem is encapsulated in the phrase "Every selection of one is a rejection of many". It was also used by Hannah Arendt in her essay "Crisis in Education", which was written in 1958 and refers to the use of meritocracy in the English educational system. She too uses the term pejoratively. It was not until 1972 that
Daniel Bell Daniel Bell (May 10, 1919 – January 25, 2011) was an American sociologist, writer, editor, and professor at Harvard University, best known for his contributions to the study of post-industrialism. He has been described as "one of the leading A ...
used the term positively. M. Young's formula to describe meritocracy is: m = IQ + E. The formula of L. Ieva instead is: m = f (IQ, Cut, ex) + E. That is, for Young, meritocracy is the sum of intelligence and energy; while, for Ieva it is represented by the function between intelligence, culture and experience, to which energy is then added.


History


Imperial China

Some of the earliest example of an administrative meritocracy, based on civil service examinations, dates back to Ancient China.Kazin, Edwards, and Rothman (2010), 142. ''One of the oldest examples of a merit-based civil service system existed in the imperial bureaucracy of China.'' The concept originates, at least by the sixth century BC, when it was advocated by the Chinese philosopher
Confucius Confucius ( ; zh, s=, p=Kǒng Fūzǐ, "Master Kǒng"; or commonly zh, s=, p=Kǒngzǐ, labels=no; – ) was a Chinese philosopher and politician of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. C ...
, who "invented the notion that those who govern should do so because of merit, not of inherited status. This sets in motion the creation of the imperial examinations and bureaucracies open only to those who passed tests". As the
Qin Qin may refer to: Dynasties and states * Qin (state) (秦), a major state during the Zhou Dynasty of ancient China * Qin dynasty (秦), founded by the Qin state in 221 BC and ended in 206 BC * Daqin (大秦), ancient Chinese name for the Roman Emp ...
and
Han Han may refer to: Ethnic groups * Han Chinese, or Han People (): the name for the largest ethnic group in China, which also constitutes the world's largest ethnic group. ** Han Taiwanese (): the name for the ethnic group of the Taiwanese p ...
dynasties developed a meritocratic system in order to maintain power over a large, sprawling empire, it became necessary for the government to maintain a complex network of officials. Prospective officials could come from a rural background and government positions were not restricted to the nobility. Rank was determined by merit, through the
civil service examination Civil service examinations are examinations implemented in various countries for recruitment and admission to the civil service. They are intended as a method to achieve an effective, rational public administration on a merit system for recruitin ...
s, and education became the key for social mobility.Burbank and Cooper (2010), 51. After the fall of the Han Dynasty, the
nine-rank system The nine-rank system, also known as the nine-grade controller system, was used to categorize and classify government officials in Imperial China. Created in the state of Cao Wei during the Three Kingdoms, it was used until the Song dynasty, and si ...
was established during the
Three Kingdoms The Three Kingdoms () from 220 to 280 AD was the tripartite division of China among the dynastic states of Cao Wei, Shu Han, and Eastern Wu. The Three Kingdoms period was preceded by the Eastern Han dynasty and was followed by the West ...
period. According to the '' Princeton Encyclopedia of American History'':Kazin, Edwards, and Rothman (2010), 142.


Ancient Greece

Both
Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
and
Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
advocated meritocracy, Plato in his '' The Republic'', arguing that the wisest should rule, and hence the rulers should be philosopher kings.


17th century

The concept of meritocracy spread from China to British India during the seventeenth century. The first European power to implement a successful meritocratic civil service was the
British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...
, in their administration of India: "company managers hired and promoted employees based on competitive examinations in order to prevent corruption and favoritism". British colonial administrators advocated the spread of the system to the rest of the Commonwealth, the most "persistent" of which was Thomas Taylor Meadows, Britain's consul in
Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...
,
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
. Meadows successfully argued in his '' Desultory Notes on the Government and People of China'', published in 1847, that "the long duration of the Chinese empire is solely and altogether owing to the good government which consists in the advancement of men of talent and merit only", and that the British must reform their civil service by making the institution meritocratic. This practice later was adopted in the late nineteenth century by the British mainland, inspired by the "Chinese mandarin system".Huddleston, Mark W. Boyer, William W. ''The higher civil service in the United States: quest for reform''. (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996), 9-10. The British philosopher and polymath John Stuart Mill advocated meritocracy in his book, ''
Considerations on Representative Government ''Considerations on Representative Government'' is a book by John Stuart Mill published in 1861. Summary Mill argues for representative government, the ideal form of government in his opinion. One of the more notable ideas Mill puts forth in t ...
''. His model was to give more votes to the more
educated Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
voter. His views are explained in Estlund (2003:57–58):
Mill's proposal of plural voting has two motives. One is to prevent one group or class of people from being able to control the political process even without having to give reasons in order to gain sufficient support. He calls this the problem of class legislation. Since the most numerous class is also at a lower level of education and social rank, this could be partly remedied by giving those at the higher ranks plural votes. A second, and equally prominent motive for plural voting is to avoid giving equal influence to each person without regard to their merit, intelligence, etc. He thinks that it is fundamentally important that political institutions embody, in their spirit, the recognition that some opinions are worth more than others. He does not say that this is a route to producing better political decisions, but it is hard to understand his argument, based on this second motive, in any other way. So, if Aristotle is right that the deliberation is best if participants are numerous (and assuming for simplicity that the voters are the deliberators) then this is a reason for giving all or many citizens a vote, but this does not yet show that the wiser subset should not have, say, two or three; in that way something would be given both to the value of the diverse perspectives, and to the value of the greater wisdom of the few. This combination of the Platonic and Aristotelian points is part of what I think is so formidable about Mill's proposal of plural voting. It is also an advantage of his view that he proposes to privilege not the wise, but the educated. Even if we agreed that the wise should rule, there is a serious problem about how to identify them. This becomes especially important if a successful political justification must be generally acceptable to the ruled. In that case, privileging the wise would require not only their being so wise as to be better rulers, but also, and more demandingly, that their wisdom be something that can be agreed to by all reasonable citizens. I turn to this conception of justification below. Mill's position has great plausibility: good education promotes the ability of citizens to rule more wisely. So, how can we deny that the educated subset would rule more wisely than others? But then why shouldn't they have more votes?
Estlund goes on to criticize Mill's education-based meritocracy on various grounds.


18th century: West Africa

The Ashanti King Osei Kwadwo who ruled from c. 1764 to 1777, began the meritocratic system of appointing central officials according to their ability, rather than their birth.


19th century

In the United States, the federal bureaucracy used the
spoils system In politics and government, a spoils system (also known as a patronage system) is a practice in which a political party, after winning an election, gives government jobs to its supporters, friends (cronyism), and relatives (nepotism) as a reward ...
from 1828 until the assassination of United States President
James A. Garfield James Abram Garfield (November 19, 1831 – September 19, 1881) was the 20th president of the United States, serving from March 4, 1881 until his death six months latertwo months after he was shot by an assassin. A lawyer and Civil War gene ...
by a disappointed office seeker in 1881 proved its dangers. Two years later in 1883, the system of appointments to the United States Federal Bureaucracy was revamped by the
Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act is a United States federal law passed by the 47th United States Congress and signed into law by President Chester A. Arthur on January 16, 1883. The act mandates that most positions within the federal govern ...
, partially based on the British meritocratic civil service that had been established years earlier. The act stipulated that government jobs should be awarded on the basis of merit, through competitive exams, rather than ties to politicians or political affiliation. It also made it illegal to fire or demote government employees for political reasons. To enforce the merit system and the judicial system, the law also created the
United States Civil Service Commission The United States Civil Service Commission was a government agency of the federal government of the United States and was created to select employees of federal government on merit rather than relationships. In 1979, it was dissolved as part of t ...
. In the modern American meritocracy, the president may hand out only a certain number of jobs, which must be approved by the
United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...
. Australia began establishing public universities in the 1850s with the goal of promoting meritocracy by providing advanced training and credentials. The educational system was set up to service urban males of middle-class background, but of diverse social and religious origins. It was increasingly extended to all graduates of the public school system, those of rural and regional background, and then to women and finally to ethnic minorities. Both the middle classes and the working classes have promoted the ideal of meritocracy within a strong commitment to "mate-ship" and political equality.


20th century to today

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
describes meritocracy as one of its official guiding principles for domestic public policy formulation, placing emphasis on academic credentials as objective measures of merit. There is criticism that, under this system, Singaporean society is being increasingly stratified and that an elite class is being created from a narrow segment of the population. Singapore has a growing level of tutoring for children, and top tutors are often paid better than school teachers. Defenders of this system recall the ancient Chinese proverb "Wealth never survives past three generations" (), suggesting that the nepotism or
cronyism Cronyism is the spoils system practice of Impartiality, partiality in awarding jobs and other advantages to friends or trusted colleagues, especially in politics and between politicians and supportive organizations. For example, cronyism occurs ...
of elitists eventually will be, and often are, limited by those lower down the hierarchy. Singaporean academics are continuously re-examining the application of meritocracy as an ideological tool and how it's stretched to encompass the ruling party's objectives. Professor Kenneth Paul Tan at the
Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy The Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKY School) is an autonomous postgraduate school of the National University of Singapore (NUS), named after the late former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew. History The Lee Kuan Yew School of ...
asserts that "meritocracy, in trying to 'isolate' merit by treating people with fundamentally unequal backgrounds as superficially the same, can be a practice that ignores and even conceals the real advantages and disadvantages that are unevenly distributed to different segments of an inherently unequal society, a practice that in fact perpetuates this fundamental inequality. In this way, those who are picked by meritocracy as having merit may already have enjoyed unfair advantages from the very beginning, ignored according to the principle of nondiscrimination". How meritocracy in the Singaporean context relates to the application of
pragmatism Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. ...
as an ideological device, which combines strict adherence to market principles ''without'' any aversion to social engineering and little propensity for classical social
welfarism In its most general sense, welfarism is a #As a theory of value, theory about what has value or what matters. It can be defined as the view that well-being is the only thing that has Axiology#Intrinsic value, intrinsic value. ''Pure welfarists'' ho ...
, is further illustrated by Kenneth Paul Tan in subsequent articles:
There is a strong ideological quality in Singapore's pragmatism, and a strongly pragmatic quality in ideological negotiations within the dynamics of hegemony. In this complex relationship, the combination of ideological and pragmatic maneuvering over the decades has resulted in the historical dominance of government by the PAP in partnership with global capital whose interests have been advanced without much reservation.
Within the
Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Eku ...
ian Ministry of Labor, the Ecuadorian Meritocracy Institute was created under the technical advice of the
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
an government. With similar objections,
John Rawls John Bordley Rawls (; February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American moral, legal and political philosopher in the liberal tradition. Rawls received both the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in ...
rejects the ideal of meritocracy as well.


Meritocracy trap

The "meritocracy trap", a concept introduced by
Daniel Markovits Daniel Markovits (born August 4, 1969) 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). Education Afte ...
in his eponymous book, criticizes the aspirational view of meritocracy as being the cause of all problems associated with this matter: it is meritocracy itself that creates radical inequality and causes so many people in society, including those who are supposed to benefit from the situation, to be worse off. The accelerating inequality has been evolving under meritocracy’s own conditions. However, the author does not reject the whole idea of meritocracy; he tries to look for different and more suitable approaches to the matter. While many critics support the idea that the inequality that has been increasing since the middle of twentieth century is actually a result of inadequate meritocracy, based on the analysis of its indicators Markovits finds that increasing inequality is actually a result of meritocracy itself. The author points out the shift from the last five, six, seven decades, when the elite "leisure class" worked only rarely and spent days enjoying their fortune, while hard working people stayed poor for their whole lives. But lately, an important change occurred: according to a Harvard Business survey, members of the elite social circles are working more and harder than ever before. More than 60% of individuals with high income work circa 50 hours per week, around 30% of them work more than 60 hours per week and the last 10% spend over 80 hours per week occupied with their work responsibilities. Also, by having access to the best possible education available since starting school, members from the top 1% of households prevail in the world leading universities around the world. The interaction of these elements creates unusual and never-seen-before living situation for members of the elite circles: by hard work, higher amount of hours spent at work and performing with higher skills obtained from the best universities, they gain respect and position of the "superordinate" working class while losing their unflattering label of " leisure class". As the author implies in his calculations, the income of a typical elite household is now from three quarters made up of earnings from labor instead of ancestors' heritage. Secondly, Markovits introduces the idea of "snowball inequality", which is basically an ongoing cycle of widening gap between elite workers and members of the middle class. While the high-profile individuals obtain exclusive positions thanks to higher level of their skills, they occupy jobs and oust middle class workers from the core of economic events. After that, the elites take advantage of their high earnings by securing the best education for their own offspring so that they obtain the highest qualification and are desired by the market for their great skills. Hence the gap between elite and middle class members is widening with every generation, inequality extensively triumphing over social mobility and forming a "time divide" – with long hours working high-profile individuals on one side, and substantially inactive middle class workers that are less and less required on the other side. One side of the coin is in this case a clear loser: the middle class, which is unwillingly being excluded from economic prosperity, social benefit and the long desired ideal of American Dream. While it is impossible to measure the exact effects on the middle class, the side effects are more obvious:
opioid epidemic The opioid epidemic, also referred to as the opioid crisis, is the rapid increase in the overuse, misuse/abuse, and overdose deaths attributed either in part or in whole to the class of drugs opiates/opioids since the 1990s. It includes the sign ...
, dramatic raise in "deaths of despair" (suicides, mental health and alcoholism), and lowering level of life expectancy in these societies are just some of them. Quite surprisingly however, the high-profile member of society is being harmed by meritocracy as well: they have to pay a significant price for their hectic working life. Many of them admit suffering from physical and mental health issues, inability to sustain a good quality personal life and lack of time spent with their families. What is of even higher importance is that meritocracy causes a continuous "competitive trap" within the elite social circles as its members are from a very early age basically contestants of a meritocratic marathon that starts in their exclusive preschools, continues at colleges and universities and finally moves its second half to the work environment. They are truly trapped in this vicious race where they are compelled to constantly compete with others and, most importantly, with themselves. In this matter, the author encounters the basic weakness of the aspirational lifestyle, which promotes the idea of meritocracy as a means for fair evaluation of the most skilled, gifted and hard-working. Markovits proposes a different approach to meritocracy, one where socioeconomic life conveniences are freely distributed to the people who are sufficiently successful at the things they are doing rather than creating an environment of ongoing competition. He promotes the idea that striving for being the best and brightest is a road to personal destruction and the people should be more open to the idea of just being good enough. Restructuring of economic roles, organizations and institutions is desirable in order to include a wider population and hence narrow the increasing inequality gap by questioning the social hegemony of high-profile workers, and intervening with redistribution of earnings, working hours and social identity on behalf of middle class workers.
Michael Sandel Michael Joseph Sandel (; born March 5, 1953) is an American political philosopher and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government Theory at Harvard University Law School, where his course Justice was the university's first course t ...
develops the argument in his 2020 book ''The Tyranny of Merit'', making a case for overhauling western neo-liberalism. Elite institutions including the Ivy League and Wall Street have corrupted the virtue, according to Sandel, and the sense of who deserves power.


Criticism


Impracticality

The term "meritocracy" was originally intended as a negative concept. One of the primary concerns with meritocracy is the unclear definition of "merit". What is considered as meritorious can differ with opinions as on which qualities are considered the most worthy, raising the question of which "merit" is the highest—or, in other words, which standard is the "best" standard. As the supposed effectiveness of a meritocracy is based on the supposed competence of its officials, this standard of merit cannot be arbitrary and has to also reflect the competencies required for their roles. The reliability of the authority and system that assesses each individual's merit is another point of concern. As a meritocratic system relies on a standard of merit to measure and compare people against, the system by which this is done has to be reliable to ensure that their assessed merit accurately reflects their potential capabilities. Standardized testing, which reflects the meritocratic sorting process, has come under criticism for being rigid and unable to accurately assess many valuable qualities and potentials of students. Education theorist Bill Ayers, commenting on the limitations of standardized testing, writes that "standardized tests can't measure initiative, creativity, imagination, conceptual thinking, curiosity, effort, irony, judgment, commitment, nuance, good will, ethical reflection, or a host of other valuable dispositions and attributes. What they can measure and count are isolated skills, specific facts and function, content knowledge, the least interesting and least significant aspects of learning". Merit determined through the opinionated evaluations of teachers, while being able to assess the valuable qualities that cannot be assessed by standardized testing, are unreliable as the opinions, insights, biases, and standards of the teachers vary greatly. If the system of evaluation is corrupt, non-transparent, opinionated or misguided, decisions regarding who has the highest merit can be highly fallible. The level of education required in order to become competitive in a meritocracy may also be costly, effectively limiting candidacy for a position of power to those with the means necessary to become educated. An example of this was Chinese student self-declared messiah,
Hong Xiuquan Hong Xiuquan (1 January 1814 – 1 June 1864), born Hong Huoxiu and with the courtesy name Renkun, was a Chinese revolutionary who was the leader of the Taiping Rebellion against the Qing dynasty. He established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdo ...
, who despite ranking first in a preliminary, nationwide
imperial examination The imperial examination (; lit. "subject recommendation") refers to a civil-service examination system in Imperial China, administered for the purpose of selecting candidates for the state bureaucracy. The concept of choosing bureaucrats by ...
, was unable to afford further education. As such, although he did try to study in private, Hong was ultimately noncompetitive in later examinations and unable to become a bureaucrat. This economic aspect of meritocracies has been said to continue nowadays in countries without free educations, with the Supreme Court of the United States, for example, consisting only of justices who attended Harvard or
Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
and generally only considering clerkship candidates who attended a top-five university, while in the 1950s the two universities only accounted for around one fifth of the justices. Even if free education were provided, the resources that the parents of a student are able to provide outside of the curriculum, such as tutoring, exam preparation, and financial support for living costs during higher education will influence the education the student attains and the student's social position in a meritocratic society. This limits the fairness and justness of any meritocratic system. Similarly, feminist critics have noted that many hierarchical organisations actually favour individuals who have received disproportionate support of an informal kind (e.g. mentorship, word-of-mouth opportunities, and so on), such that only those who benefit from such supports are likely to understand these organisations as meritocratic.
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
economist
Robert H. Frank Robert Harris Frank (born January 2, 1945) is the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management and a professor of economics at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University. He contributes to the "Economic View" ...
rejects meritocracy in his book ''Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy''. 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 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.


Undesirable outcomes

Another concern regards the principle of incompetence, or the "
Peter Principle The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter, which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence": employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until ...
". As people rise in a meritocratic society through the social hierarchy through their demonstrated merit, they eventually reach, and become stuck, at a level too difficult for them to perform effectively; they are promoted to incompetence. This reduces the effectiveness of a meritocratic system, the supposed main practical benefit of which is the competence of those who run the society. In his book ''Meritocratic Education and Social Worthlessness'' (Palgrave, 2012), the philosopher
Khen Lampert Khen Lampert (born 1957) is an Israeli educator and a philosopher, Professor of behavioral-sciences, who teaches Philosophy, History, Cultural Studies and Education. He has extensive experience working with children in underprivileged neighborhoods ...
argued that educational meritocracy is nothing but a
post-modern Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...
version of
Social Darwinism Social Darwinism refers to various theories and societal practices that purport to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics and politics, and which were largely defined by scholars in We ...
. Its proponents argue that the theory justifies social inequality as being meritocratic. This
social theory Social theories are analytical frameworks, or paradigms, that are used to study and interpret social phenomena.Seidman, S., 2016. Contested knowledge: Social theory today. John Wiley & Sons. A tool used by social scientists, social theories rela ...
holds that Darwin's theory of evolution by
natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Cha ...
is a model, not only for the development of biological traits in a population, but also as an application for human
social institution Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions a ...
s—the existing social institutions being implicitly declared as
normative Normative generally means relating to an evaluative standard. Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good, desirable, or permissible, and others as bad, undesirable, or impermissible. A norm in ...
. Social Darwinism shares its roots with early
progressivism Progressivism holds that it is possible to improve human societies through political action. As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, tec ...
, and was most popular from the late nineteenth century to the end of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. Darwin only ventured to propound his theories in a biological sense, and it is other thinkers and theorists who have applied Darwin's model normatively to unequal endowments of human ambitions. Harvard philosopher
Michael Sandel Michael Joseph Sandel (; born March 5, 1953) is an American political philosopher and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government Theory at Harvard University Law School, where his course Justice was the university's first course t ...
in his latest book 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 Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group against " the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term developed ...
.


School meritocracy

School meritocracy is the belief that hard work leads to success. Research shows that teachers give better grades and value a lot more children who explain their problems or their behaviour with inner explanations (like the amount of efforts they gave), than those who give environmental or factual explanations (like predispositions or family background). Moreover, pupils who want to show a good image of themselves will prefer explaining their success or failures with inner characteristics rather than with external facts. However, social classes and sex are other important factors which explain academic success, merit being only one of the determining aspects. Education system has two functions: one is to educate, and the other is to select. Indeed, in occidental societies, the education system assigns occupations to students, occupations that are very different in wealth, power, and position, through grades and diplomas that act as merit indicators. Students with very good degrees will be directed to high status jobs and students with lower degrees or no degree at all will be directed to low status jobs. As a result, one’s future depends entirely on one’s success or failure during school career, which itself depends, according to school meritocracy, on its own efforts to make it a success. School meritocracy is also linked with favouritism and with group membership. However, school career, grades and degrees depend a lot on group belonging (sex, being from privileged or unprivileged background) to the extent that growing up with less resources (computer, educated parents who can help with homework…) and less serenity, will penalise a pupil no matter how many efforts he or she makes. It has also been discovered that the more a woman tend to believe in meritocracy, the less they would reject system explanations about men’s superiority. Believing in meritocracy is sometimes a bias, as some scientific results from studies showed that participants would work harder when they were told that success on the task was due to luck, for instance. They would also value much more one study among similar ones, based on meritocracy believes. There are two different types of meritocracy: - Prescriptive meritocracy: how people think the system should work. - Descriptive meritocracy: how people think the system actually works. The belief in school meritocracy (BSM) is a way to justify the social order. It is linked to the theory of social reproduction. High status group members are better off than low status group members who are disadvantaged by the hierarchies. Justifying the status by school meritocracy is a way to legitimize their position. However, school meritocracy is also a positive belief to the extent that it promotes the idea of social mobility and the fact that when one has a strong will, one can reach any status. This fact makes students from lower status groups more dependent to the meritocratic belief than students from the higher status groups, because it represents their probability to reach a higher status group. Therefore, it has been shown they can end up agreeing more in school meritocracy.Virginie Wiederkehr, Virginie Bonnot, Silvia Krauth-Gruber, Céline Darnon. 30 July 2015. ''Belief in school meritocracy as a system-justifying tool for low status students.'' https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01053


See also

*
Achievement ideology Achievement Ideology is the belief that one reaches a socially perceived definition of success through hard work and education. In this view, factors such as gender, race/ethnicity, economic background, social networks, or neighborhoods/geography ...
*
Civil service entrance examination Civil service examinations are examinations implemented in various countries for recruitment and admission to the civil service. They are intended as a method to achieve an effective, rational public administration on a merit system for recruitin ...
* Differential Education Achievement *
Educational entrance examination An entrance examination is an examination that educational institutions conduct to select prospective students for admission. It may be held at any stage of education, from primary to tertiary, even though it is typically held at tertiary stage. ...
* Elitism *
Equality of opportunity 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. The intent is that the important ...
*
Equality of outcome Equality of outcome, equality of condition, or equality of results is a political concept which is central to some political ideologies and is used in some political discourse, often in contrast to the term equality of opportunity. It describes a ...
*
Merit (Buddhism) Merit ( sa, puṇya, italic=yes, pi, puñña, italic=yes) is a concept considered fundamental to Buddhist ethics. It is a beneficial and protective force which accumulates as a result of good deeds, acts, or thoughts. Merit-making is important ...
*
Merit (Christianity) In Christian theology, merit (Latin: ''meritum'') is a good work done that is "seen to have a claim to a future reward from a graceful God". The role of human merit in Christian life is a point of dispute between Catholics and Protestants. Within ...
*
Ownership society Ownership society is a slogan for a model of society promoted by former United States president George W. Bush. It takes as lead values personal responsibility, economic liberty, and the owning of property. The ''ownership society'' discussed by ...
* Social mobility *
Technocracy Technocracy is a form of government in which the decision-maker or makers are selected based on their expertise in a given area of responsibility, particularly with regard to scientific or technical knowledge. This system explicitly contrasts wi ...


Notes


References


Further reading

* Burbank, Jane and Cooper, Frederick. (2010). ''Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference''. Princeton: Princeton University Press. . * Kazin, Michael, Edwards, Rebecca, and Rothman, Adam. (2010). ''The Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History Volume 2''. Princeton University Press. . * Kett, Joseph F. ''Merit: The History of a Founding Ideal From the American Revolution to the Twenty-First Century.'' Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012. * Lampert, Khen. ''Meritocratic Education and Social Worthlessness'', Palgrave-Macmillan, UK, 24 December 2012; * Mulligan, Thomas. (2018)
''Justice and the Meritocratic State''
New York: Routledge. . * Schwarz, Bill. (1996). ''The expansion of England: race, ethnicity and cultural history''. Psychology Pres. . * Ieva, Lorenzo. (2018). ''Fondamenti di meritocrazia''. Rome: Europa edizioni. . * Sandel, Michael.


External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Meritocracy Affirmative action Liberalism Political neologisms Political philosophy Rule by a subset of population Social philosophy Socio-economic mobility