Meritocracy was not always supposed to connote the do-it-yourself attitude and individual liberty it has come to mean in Western democracies. At its base, meritocracy seems to be a relatively neutral and reasonable concept, defined as a system in which people are rewarded “based on their ability and talent rather than on class, privilege or wealth.” While recognizing ability—or merit—seems like a fair way to organize society, the word was actually popularized in 1958 in a dystopian novel written by the British sociologist Michael Young titled The Rise of the Meritocracy. The American political philosopher Michael Sandel argues that we are wrong to conceive of meritocracy as a social goal. In practice, the way meritocracy informs many of our political processes has been warped to become unjust, and meritocratic thinking is corrosive to society as we lose sight of the common good1. Moreover, Sandel suggests that we need to rethink the ‘neutral’ cost-benefit perspective of economic thinking that has come to justify meritocracy, to truly imbue our social and political systems with justice2. So how exactly is meritocracy undesirable, and perhaps more importantly, how can we retool our popular conceptions of justice?
The origins of meritocratic thought
The most notable flaws in meritocracy were exacerbated by the consequences of 1980s neoliberalism, notably in the United Kingdom and United States. This economic model created a system of unchecked capitalism, which in turn permitted the growth of wealth inequality.3 In effect, neoliberal economics heightened the tensions in the relationship between personal success and individual privileges. As much as we would like to believe it, effort and skill are not the only determinants of success. Success measured through upward socioeconomic mobility depends on a multitude of factors beyond one’s control; current macroeconomic variables such as minimum wage, social security, and family economic situation play a large role as well. These factors are also intertwined with other social factors, such as the historic disenfranchisement of racial and ethnic minorities.
Sandel expands on this conclusion and goes further in arguing that meritocracy is not only unjust because its first principles are almost impossible to implement, but that meritocratic thinking itself is corrosive to the common good.4 In theory, meritocracy cultivates both pride—what one achieves as the outcome of individual effort—and humility – the recognition that personal success is also a product of luck and social circumstances. However, meritocracy in practice disrupts this dialectic by overrepresenting pride. In the words of Sandel, meritocratic societies flatter the successful and criticize the unsuccessful at the cost of ignoring the poorly designed economic and social policies that have disadvantaged certain groups. This is precisely what corrodes communitarianism: we no longer discuss the common good or civic virtues that can create a more just society. Instead, meritocratic thinking has led to a culture of ‘victim-blaming’, which only stokes the fire of political polarization and with it, right-wing populism. 5
Is justice truly blind?
Perhaps underlying the more immediate historical forces that ushered in meritocratic thinking in the 1970s and 80s is a tendency to misconceive certain measures of value as neutral. In his book Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? Sandel highlights three dominant forms of justice that permeate our conceptions of just society and action. First, he conceptualizes utilitarian justice as what occurs when an outcome aligns with the greatest good and utility for the greatest amount of people. Second, he touches on libertarian justice, the conditions for which are individual freedom and moral responsibility. Finally, he comes to talk of justice as engrained in virtue ethics, which occurs when people recognize their ideal society and cultivate the virtues that would bring this society about. Taken at face value, it seems only the third form of justice, virtue ethics, is not objective: it overtly involves normative and subjective assessments. However, while libertarian and utilitarian justice seem almost neutral to us, the values of freedom and responsibility, as well as the cost-benefit analysis of utilitarian thinking involve just as much normative commitment. Indeed, any perspective that involves the shaping of social relationships is just that—a subjective judgment that is built on normative assessments of value. Naturally, it is not that organizing a society by subjective values is undesirable. It is unavoidably and crucially necessary that most, if not all, political questions be answered with normative solutions. However, it becomes dangerous once we make normative prescriptions under the supposition that they are neutral, thereby dismissing the subjectivity of the announcer. Meritocratic thinking—and other political orientations—have become increasingly undergirded by supposedly neutral market norms where they shouldn’t be. Consider aphorisms like “what you earn is what you make”, and how the efficiency of the free market rewards those who put in the “effort and merit”.
The case for subjectivity
The question remains, though, that if the society we desire is one that is open to everyone, wouldn’t a more ‘neutral’ form of justice more inclusive? This consideration is addressed as one of the criticisms of the work of John Rawls. Rawls’ vision of justice, delineated in A Theory of Justice, argues for a thought experiment in which members of a society are placed behind a ‘veil of ignorance’ in order to consider their ideal vision of society from what he terms the ‘original position.’ From behind the veil, one cannot know the position one will be born into and must design the terms of their society according to this ignorance. Rawls’ vision of justice thus operates by the difference principle, where “social and economic inequalities are arranged so that they are of the greatest benefit to the least advantaged.”6 The issue, however, is that it is impossible to remove oneself of any and all particularities and subjectivities. This is especially true when one has to consider issues that require the input of individual perspectives, such as the structure of the ideal society. Neutrality is not abstention from taking a stance—it is a position in and of itself. If there is one thing that the impossibility and, as Sandel points out, the danger of ‘neutral’ thinking should teach us then, it is that we should continue to let our particular beliefs and values inform our conceptions of justice.7
Ultimately, it is crucial to remember that in the political association we share, the common good we are constantly working toward is the good of the community, as a whole, not just the sum total of individual preferences. Instead of promoting the demonstrably subjective form of meritocratic thinking that has corroded meritocracy as just for the common good, we should cultivate political virtues that allow us to fully recognize our places in society—our political positionality. Who we are is not just up to what we earn, the effort we make, or the skills we have, but the family we were born into and the friends we make. Realizing that we are interdependent members of a community allows us to form the types of healthy disagreements that can, in time, be channeled into a productive, compassionate society, and in turn, allow us to conceptualize justice in a way that comprehends our positionality and subjectivities.
- West, Stephen, host. “Why a meritocracy is corrosive to society (Michael Sandel)” Philosophize This (podcast). July 21, 2024, Accessed November 1, 2024. https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-201-transcript-bkx3e-37rkx-bpl83-ysc9b
↩︎ - West, Stephen, host. “The importance of philosophy, justice and the common good (Michael Sandel)” Philosophize This (podcast). July 21, 2024. Accessed November 1, 2024. https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-201-transcript-bkx3e-37rkx-bpl83
↩︎ - Roy Kwon, “How Do Neoliberal Policies Affect Income Inequality?” (Sociological Forum, 2018), 643 ↩︎
- Michael Sandel, The Tyranny of Merit (Penguin, 2020) ↩︎
- West, Stephen, host. “Why a meritocracy is corrosive to society (Michael Sandel)” Philosophize This (podcast). July 21, 2024, Accessed November 1, 2024. https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-201-transcript-bkx3e-37rkx-bpl83-ysc9b ↩︎
- John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Harvard University Press, 1999) ↩︎
- West, Stephen, host. “The importance of philosophy, justice and the common good (Michael Sandel)” Philosophize This (podcast). July 21, 2024. Accessed November 1, 2024. https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-201-transcript-bkx3e-37rkx-bpl83 ↩︎
Edited by Éva Leblanc
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and they do not reflect the position of the McGill Journal of Political Science or the Political Science Students’ Association.
Featured image by truthdig
References:
Kwon, Roy. “How Do Neoliberal Policies Affect Income Inequality? Exploring the Link Between Liberalization, Finance, and Inequality.” Sociological Forum 33, no. 3 (2018): 643–65. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26625943.
Rawls, John. 1999. A Theory of Justice. N.p.: Harvard University Press.
Sandel, Michael J. 2020. The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? N.p.: Penguin Books Limited.
West, Stephen, host. “Why a meritocracy is corrosive to society (Michael Sandel)” Philosophize This (podcast). July 21, 2024. Accessed November 1, 2024. https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-201-transcript-bkx3e-37rkx-bpl83-ysc9b
West, Stephen, host. “The importance of philosophy, justice and the common good (Michael Sandel)” Philosophize This (podcast). July 21, 2024. Accessed November 1, 2024. https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-201-transcript-bkx3e-37rkx-bpl83