The Grand Illusion
Over recent years and even decades, idealists have been holding up the idea of the meritocracy as the most ideal way to get to a “fairer” and more egalitarian U.S. society. They point out that everyone should be judged on their abilities and that will take care of the problem.
The problem with this idea is that we’re fairly close to that right now (that is, in the sense that in hiring for more and more jobs most people are judged on their credentials), and the current semi-meritocracy hasn’t created a fair and more egalitarian workplace, and that won’t happen so long as the system remains as it’s presently structured or as long as such concepts as “personal freedom,” self-determination, and market economy are part of the legal/social framework (and I’m definitely opposed to removing any of those).
One of the problems with the current “meritocracy” is that poorer or disadvantaged children of equal raw talent/native intelligence to those more advantaged (and thus better credentialed) don’t have anywhere near equal opportunity to refine their raw ability into usable and valuable skills that will allow them to benefit from higher education or advanced technical training.
In addition, the students able to benefit the most from college education are those individuals with the most resources, whose families can provide better nutrition, better economic and educational support (such as college and post-graduate degrees, as well as housing and living expenses) so that they enter the workforce with extensive credentials (since we are a society where success requires credentials for most people), with more developed contacts, and without debt. Unless society is going to strip away all income inequality (effectively destroying freedom), offspring of the well-off will always have an advantage in showing “merit.”.
The upper middle class can provide a certain amount of support for their offspring, but many of them will leave higher education with a certain amount of debt and sometimes a great deal more, without any certainty that they’ll be able to pay it off. And for the vast majority of offspring of less affluent or poor families, higher education means crippling debt, if they can even get into higher education.
Then, too, like it or not, studies show that standardized tests measure fairly accurately a student’s ability to handle college level work. The problem is that they don’t measure as well the ability to handle many post-education jobs, because too many college curricula don’t teach students to think or to persevere, and that’s yet another area where the children of the well-off have an advantage because more of them are taught the social codes of the elite and to think by their families.
So… unless one either destroys the elites and the upper middle class, which means total loss of freedom and rigid socialism, or provides more aid for the children of the working poor, we’ll remain an unequal semi-meritocracy
The other point is the moment society embraces a minimum credential level to do a job, the expected credential requirement for those jobs will increase as a means of weeding out “unsuitable” people.
So trades which took in and trained apprentices now require 3yr graduates, and often post graduate for higher ranks.
The post graduate isn’t a reflection of the expected quality of the employee but rather their financial and social situation which permitted several additional years of expensive study in esoterica. Or in other words weeding out anyone not middle class or up.
LEM, that makes a great deal of sense. Good analysis of the underlying problem.
Although maybe I shouldn’t say “the” underlying problem. After all, as long as meritocracy efforts threaten white supremacy, that’s an underlying problem as well, isn’t it?
That’s a well stated argument for DEI. The downside of a meritocracy is that some people move down while others move up. The current anger in the USA comes from those who don’t have the ability to rise to meet their expectations. In the past the rising tide of economic benefits means that everyone had an absolute better standard of living even if their relative standard of living declined. The problem today is that the extremely wealthy are sucking up the rising tide so that it looks more like just before a tidal wave hits. That tidal wave is going to hit eventually with corresponding social upheaval unless something changes.
Nobody, nor the entire top 1-2%, is rich enough to suck up the rising tide entirely.
Although those who have some ability to read the tides and the resources to act on that ability may do better than most, that’s still not actually taking away from anyone lacking those advantages, except if you make your money on stock trades, there will always be losers as well as winners. But with something solid that goes up gradually or pays dividends, and is held for longer, that’s not much of an issue. And nobody has to play the market, give or take pension funds which really need to be managed on a sound balance of safety and performance more and on ideology less.
While some minimum tax (which already exists!) without loopholes may not be inappropriate, getting the rich to pay significantly more is NOT the answer, there aren’t enough of them to make a big difference. The federal government could burn through the total assets of the top 1% (if those were cash, which they aren’t) in just a few years, and then it would be gone, whereas if they keep it, it contributes SOMETHING both in taxes and probably even more in economic activity (not like they keep it in a mattress). Some incentives for domestic investment and disincentives for investing abroad might be possible, but the devil is always in the details, and unintended consequences are hard to avoid.
Most redistribution is a big fail. Look at poor lottery winners: a lot of them, if they take a lump sum, are broke in a few years, because they lack either the knowledge or the discipline to make it last, or trust the wrong person to provide those for them, or do not set limits on an entire extended family of moochers. Redistribution is like subsidized medical care, a bottomless pit because demand will exceed any possible supply.
Publicly funded colleges AND trade schools sound tempting. But look at public schools: the most expensive are often among the less effective, because they have massive disciplinary and babysitting issues to cope with, and negligible parental support. Colleges both public and to a degree private often have an issue with promoting extreme and anti-productive ideology and NOT promoting either practical learning or exposure without extreme reaction to a variety of views. In essence, an older group version of the discipline problem. And colleges and even some K-12 are heavy on overhead, some of which is of questionable practicality, to the detriment of both teachers and students.
So any increased public funding of education or anything else had IMO better be accompanied by radical accountability for results.
Darn shame it would totally violate liberty to license parenting – and not on ideological terms, but pragmatic ones. No that’s not eugenics,either, it would be putting the economic burden back where it originates. But it’s not going to happen, and shouldn’t, so it doesn’t matter except as a mental exercise. (it may occasionally happen insofar as kids may sometimes be taken from their parents for ideological rather than practical reasons, but that’s presumably rare here, at least one might hope so)
And yet so many of the things you say are impossible happen just fine in other countries without significant issue.
But acknowledging that requires admitting that your needlessly cruel and selfish outlook is flawed.
Just like acknowledging that supporting attacks on human rights and marginalized groups makes you a horrible person no matter how little problem you personally had with such groups.
Agree for the most part here but would also argue that much of this anger is coming from (or is manufactured by) those who have the time and luxury. LEM’s idealists are essentially a by-product of said system.
Most the population is too busy trying to pay the bills, feed the kids and distract ourselves with various forms of entertainment. Nearly half are doing this so well they can’t be bothered to vote.
If anything this is a good argument for implementing a universal basic income but who knows how many more vocal idealists that would produce?
I do not agree one little bit with this because I’ve lived the contrary.
In my university cohort there were a few upper/middle class kids who studied hard, but there were far more working class kids who did. Unfortunately there were many who just partied or took drugs, but that was their choice.
I think the key was that in those days there were still grants, which put the brighter working class kids at the same level as everyone else. I hung out with the working class kids and most of us ended up getting PhDs. The rich kids, not so much.
Also one’s time at university was very much sink or swim: people were failed and were kicked out, and some lecturers were completely incomprehensible, so perseverance was very much part of the curriculum.
As far as I’m concerned, I’ve seen meritocracy work, and I’ve seen it benefit hard working bright working class kids.
I’m sure your observations are true – but they are simply anecdotes. Individual observations versus population level statistics can, and often do, differ. That’s why, for example, drug studies regulated by the FDA are rigorous and comprehensive, and require proof of efficacy from a suitably large study pool. Just saying.
To me, it means that meritocracy can work, so instead of trying to do something else… we should help it occur.
For instance, I’d be happy for my taxes to go towards merit-based grants while simultaneously having rigorous exams to keep out those who’ll just waste everyone’s time: don’t lower the bar, increase help for those that actually need and want it.
This isn’t particularly novel either — the Chinese exams under the Chinese emperor were open to all and were very demanding, yet allowed the children of peasants to join the court.
As a TA at university, I remember telling some of the continuing ed students that I wasn’t there to help them get a certificate so they could demand more money at work. I’d only help them if they actually wanted to learn the material, not if they just wanted to pass the exam. They whined a bit, but then they knuckled down.
Also, since it’s probably relevant to the discussion, by far the most financially successful guy in my peer group came from a minority family… not that any of us cared at the time, nor indeed care today.
Exactly. And after all, Joe, I’ve related a couple of personal experiences here myself, and you’ve just shrugged them off. That’s fair enough, but it does work both ways.
In response to R. Hamilton’s comment regarding taxes on the wealthy.
Patently false. As a mental exercise, let’s increase the income tax rate by 20% on the top 2%. This would result in nearly a trillion in additional revenue or about half the annual deficit.
Increase it for the top 5% coupled with some meaningful reductions in spending and there will be enough left over for Trump’s sovereign wealth fund.
Continuing the mental acrobatics, let’s extend some compassion to 2% and continue to leave their assets alone, which will likely see substantial growth as markets respond to the reduction in government debt and lower inflation from greater tax.