The So-Called Meritocracy Isn't The Problem

In 1958, British sociologist Michael Young coined the term "meritocracy" in his satirical novel, called "The Rise of the Meritocracy." Its point was simple: When intelligence and effort are selected by any society as the basis for success or failure, those with such merit begin to comprise their own class. That class hardens into an elite that brooks no dissent and stratifies society. As Young would say in 2001, "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."

This general point has become the basis for illiberal thinkers, both on the Left and on the Right. Philosopher Michael Sandel, in his latest book, "The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?" argues that the very notion of a meritocracy carries with it an inescapable and unsustainably selfish moral judgment. According to Sandel, "The ideal itself is flawed. Meritocracy has a dark side. And the dark side is that meritocracy is corrosive of the common good. It encourages the successful to believe that their success is their own doing and that they, therefore, deserve the bounty that the market heaps upon them ... it generates hubris among the winners. They believe that their success is their own doing and they also believe, implicitly at least, that those who struggle must deserve their fate as well."

This argument can be marshaled on behalf of both Right-wing and Left-wing critiques of the current capitalist order. On the Right, the argument is that capitalism -- rewarding, as it generally does, intelligence and hard work -- undermines important social institutions. David Brooks argues in The New York Times that meritocracy destroys "civic consciousness, a sense that we live life embedded in community and nation, that we owe a debt to community and nation and that the essence of the admirable life is community before self." On the Left, the argument is that meritocracy justifies existing imbalances of economic and social power.

The debate over meritocracy, however, depends on a crucial failure to distinguish between economic merit and moral merit. The term meritocracy itself does a great disservice in smudging this distinction -- that is, in fact, why Young coined the term that way. Instead of linking "merit," with all of its moral implications, with intelligence and hard work, we ought to instead use the term "skillsocracy." Any economic system that rewards skills produces positive externalities. A person who works hard, who innovates -- who creates better products and services and trades those products and services with someone else -- enriches not only those involved in the voluntary trade, but also the society at large by raising the bar on the products and services that will eventually become available to everyone. Every innovation is quickly followed by competition, by the spread of that innovation to a broader and broader market -- which is why peasants today in Western societies live better than kings did centuries ago.

By contrast, any economic system that prizes an alternative set of values has negative externalities. Should we adjudicate economic distribution by race? Creed? Religion? Simple ethical preference? Disincentivize risk-taking, guarantee incomes by "moral occupation," and watch as misallocation of labor destroys economic progress entirely; watch as society breaks down as those who produce less for their fellow man are rewarded more.

This does not mean that those who are most dexterous should "run society." To create such a system would, in fact, undermine the skillsocracy itself, since it would allow the centralized will of some to undermine the innovative efforts of all. Economic mobility must remain predicated on skill, or the skillsocracy is undermined.

This also does not mean that the skillsocracy actually acts as a measure of moral good. Intelligence is largely inborn, and thus not a moral attribute per se; propensity for hard work may be partially genetic but can be cultivated. But in a moral society, we find noneconomic ways of treasuring virtue. We cultivate friendships; we provide honor and respect; we build communities on virtue and exclude those people who do not abide by such moral standards.

This means that a skillsocracy ought not be at odds with a virtuous society. Far from it. The so-called "meritocracy" need not devolve into a moral measure of intelligence and hard work; indeed, in a healthy society, it must not. But by the same token, we must never destroy the skillsocracy as a supposedly expedient way to revive moral living. That effort would be both unsuccessful and wildly counterproductive.

“That we owe a debt to community and nation and that the essence of the admirable life is community before self.”

No, we don’t.

It’s funny to me how we never hear about any calls for affirmative action in men’s sports, which is cut-throat meritocracy at its finest.

Gee I wonder why that is? /s

David Brooks argues in The New York Times that meritocracy destroys "civic consciousness, a sense that we live life embedded in community and nation, that we owe a debt to community and nation and that the essence of the admirable life is community before self."

Mr. Brooks apparently does not know any small business owners. I have yet to meet one (and I know a lot of them and am married to one) that isn't civic/community oriented.

We earn our living from the community we live and serve in. Of course we are going to do our best to support and engage in activities that are for the betterment of our host community. We are symbiotic, not parasitic.

Which is more than you can say of the ruling class junta of mediacrats, academics and government workers.

We’ve seen the results of your ideology. It allows CEOs to get a bonus for every American worker they fire and replace with cheaper Chinese workers. Free marketers willing to sell the nation itself will eventually destroy America.

And the dark side is that meritocracy is corrosive of the common good.

That is the statement of a fool, IOW someone with low merit. Which no doubt, explains their position on the issue of merit and meritocracy.

Involuntary altruism coerced by government vs success on the merits of individual capability. Apparently, some have not read or understood the contents of "Atlas Shrugged".

You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for with out receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation.
Dr. Adrian Rogers

We're getting close to generating an army of John Galt individuals that will not comply with an overbearing, monetarily voracious government. The skilled will withdraw their services. Exploitation to generate tax revenue where there is no reward for effort...it is taxed away to fund "the common good", is a recipe for failure. It is a major misunderstanding of basic behavioral psychology.

I read that book on a whim, and yeah, it has a lot of bunk.

But I keep thinking back to my college years and an econ class I had. The professor asked “What do you do with the vast majority of the population that will never be able to perform at a high level?”

Half or more of the population has an IQ less than 100.

When you build a society that rewards the high IQ, what do you do with the ones that can’t compete.

He didn’t have an answer, and it is getting worse.

Find the O positive ones, harvest the organs for the high IQ productive ones to prolong life of those valuable people. Then gas chamber the rest with nitrogen gas it’s painless, cheap and efficient. That’s how you deal with vast numbers of useless eaters. Ask the Germans for some design idea’s they got good at it. But seriously there will be a point in society when the number of useless eaters exceeds the productive due to the dumbing down of society and automation of the means of production. At that point society will have to come up with a way to cloth, house and feed people who are never going to be productive members again.

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