politicians from all walks of life
nowadays agree on one thing we need to
build more meritocratic societies that
is societies where everyone no matter
what their background is has the chance
to succeed on their own merits this is a
beautiful idea responsible for some
great things like free education for all
positive discrimination and a real
effort to end nepotism in business and
government we’ve largely done away with
the old world of feudalism where Lords
couldn’t manage their estates commanders
couldn’t understand the principles of
battle and peasants were brighter than
their masters no longer is background an
impassable obstacle to advancement an
element of justice has finally entered
into the distribution of rewards it’s
been going on for about 250 years ever
since Napoleon declared that the ranks
of the French army in civil service
would henceforth be open to all on merit
rather than family background it’s been
a brilliant development but there is
importantly a darker side to the idea of
meritocracy because if we truly believe
that we’ve created or could one day
create a world where the successful
truly merited all their success it
necessarily follows that we’d have to
argue that the failures were exclusively
responsible for their failure in a
meritocratic age an element of justice
enters into the distribution of wealth
and status of course but also of poverty
low status comes to seem not just
regrettable but also deserved succeeding
financially without inheritance or
contacts in an economic meritocracy
gives individuals an element of personal
validation that the noblemen of old
who’d been given his money in his castle
by his father had never been able to
feel but at the same time financial
failure has become associated with a
sense of shame that the peasant of old
denied all chances in life had also
thankfully been spared the question of
why if one’s in any way good clever or
able one is still poor becomes
infinitely more acute and painful
for the unsuccessful to have to answer
to themselves and other people in a new
meritocratic age there’s turned out to
be no shortage of people willing to
answer the question on behalf of the
poor for a certain constituency it’s
clear and perhaps even scientifically
provable that the poor Oh their position
to their own stupidity and degeneracy
with the rise of an economic meritocracy
in certain quarters the poor have moved
from being described as unfortunate the
target of the charity and guilt of a
paternally minded rich to being
described as failures fair targets of
contempt in the eyes of robust self-made
individuals who had disinclined to feel
shamed about their mansions or shed
crocodile tears for those whose company
they’ve escaped in the harsher climate
of opinion that can just state in the
fertile corners of meritocratic
societies it’s become possible to argue
that the social hierarchy rigorously
reflects the qualities of the members on
every rung of the ladder and so that
conditions already in place for good
people to succeed and the dummies to
flounder attenuating the need for
charity welfare redistributed measures
or simple compassion it’s a symptom of
our great faith in meritocracy that it’s
largely become impossible to explain
away our failures as the result of bad
luck
while it’s granted that luck maintains a
theoretical role in shaping the course
of our careers the evaluation of people
proceeds in practical terms as if they
could all fairly be held responsible for
what happens to them it would seem Julie
and even suspiciously modest to ascribe
a victory to good luck and more
importantly it would be pitiable to
blame defeat just on bad luck
winners make their own luck that’s what
modern society tells us it’s tough
living in a world so in love with the
idea that we’re all responsible for
everything that it’s largely dismissed
bad luck as a credible explanation for
defeat but of course there can never be
a truly meritocratic system because the
merit of an individual is far too
complex and subtle a thing to be
determined by what job you end up
and how much money you end up earning
those who have faith in meritocracy are
essentially subscribing to an insane and
certainly arrogant assumption that
ordinary humans employers or customers
can handily take over the solemn
responsibilities that passed ages more
wisely left in the hands of a God who
helped along by the Angels was due to
weigh the souls of each person on the
day of judgment no one in this world
ever gets exactly what they deserve in
terms both of the good things and the
bad things life is to a large extent we
don’t quite admit to random in a way
that the meritocratic philosophy denies
to free ourselves from some of the more
punishing side effects of a meritocratic
worldview it would be wise to cease
investing something as haphazardly
distributed as jobs and money with moral
connotations and we should retain a
little of the old-fashioned modest
belief in a distinction between what
someone earns and what they’re like as humans
nowadays agree on one thing we need to
build more meritocratic societies that
is societies where everyone no matter
what their background is has the chance
to succeed on their own merits this is a
beautiful idea responsible for some
great things like free education for all
positive discrimination and a real
effort to end nepotism in business and
government we’ve largely done away with
the old world of feudalism where Lords
couldn’t manage their estates commanders
couldn’t understand the principles of
battle and peasants were brighter than
their masters no longer is background an
impassable obstacle to advancement an
element of justice has finally entered
into the distribution of rewards it’s
been going on for about 250 years ever
since Napoleon declared that the ranks
of the French army in civil service
would henceforth be open to all on merit
rather than family background it’s been
a brilliant development but there is
importantly a darker side to the idea of
meritocracy because if we truly believe
that we’ve created or could one day
create a world where the successful
truly merited all their success it
necessarily follows that we’d have to
argue that the failures were exclusively
responsible for their failure in a
meritocratic age an element of justice
enters into the distribution of wealth
and status of course but also of poverty
low status comes to seem not just
regrettable but also deserved succeeding
financially without inheritance or
contacts in an economic meritocracy
gives individuals an element of personal
validation that the noblemen of old
who’d been given his money in his castle
by his father had never been able to
feel but at the same time financial
failure has become associated with a
sense of shame that the peasant of old
denied all chances in life had also
thankfully been spared the question of
why if one’s in any way good clever or
able one is still poor becomes
infinitely more acute and painful
for the unsuccessful to have to answer
to themselves and other people in a new
meritocratic age there’s turned out to
be no shortage of people willing to
answer the question on behalf of the
poor for a certain constituency it’s
clear and perhaps even scientifically
provable that the poor Oh their position
to their own stupidity and degeneracy
with the rise of an economic meritocracy
in certain quarters the poor have moved
from being described as unfortunate the
target of the charity and guilt of a
paternally minded rich to being
described as failures fair targets of
contempt in the eyes of robust self-made
individuals who had disinclined to feel
shamed about their mansions or shed
crocodile tears for those whose company
they’ve escaped in the harsher climate
of opinion that can just state in the
fertile corners of meritocratic
societies it’s become possible to argue
that the social hierarchy rigorously
reflects the qualities of the members on
every rung of the ladder and so that
conditions already in place for good
people to succeed and the dummies to
flounder attenuating the need for
charity welfare redistributed measures
or simple compassion it’s a symptom of
our great faith in meritocracy that it’s
largely become impossible to explain
away our failures as the result of bad
luck
while it’s granted that luck maintains a
theoretical role in shaping the course
of our careers the evaluation of people
proceeds in practical terms as if they
could all fairly be held responsible for
what happens to them it would seem Julie
and even suspiciously modest to ascribe
a victory to good luck and more
importantly it would be pitiable to
blame defeat just on bad luck
winners make their own luck that’s what
modern society tells us it’s tough
living in a world so in love with the
idea that we’re all responsible for
everything that it’s largely dismissed
bad luck as a credible explanation for
defeat but of course there can never be
a truly meritocratic system because the
merit of an individual is far too
complex and subtle a thing to be
determined by what job you end up
and how much money you end up earning
those who have faith in meritocracy are
essentially subscribing to an insane and
certainly arrogant assumption that
ordinary humans employers or customers
can handily take over the solemn
responsibilities that passed ages more
wisely left in the hands of a God who
helped along by the Angels was due to
weigh the souls of each person on the
day of judgment no one in this world
ever gets exactly what they deserve in
terms both of the good things and the
bad things life is to a large extent we
don’t quite admit to random in a way
that the meritocratic philosophy denies
to free ourselves from some of the more
punishing side effects of a meritocratic
worldview it would be wise to cease
investing something as haphazardly
distributed as jobs and money with moral
connotations and we should retain a
little of the old-fashioned modest
belief in a distinction between what
someone earns and what they’re like as humans
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