The question of how to divide wealth in society has plagued political philosophers from antiquity to today. As said by Boris Johnson, ‘Inequality is essential’: it fosters a ‘valuable spur to economic activity.’ Whilst brash and bumbling (no change there…), Johnson’s point has merit. If wealth was equally distributed, there would be no incentive to work, as after all, who would choose to clean the sewers if there was equal reward to cultivating your back garden? 

Western liberal democracies have arrived at the consensus of distributing wealth by merit. Put best by Micheal Young, who coined the phrase,  ‘IQ + Effort = merit,’ it is your skill and drive that determines your economic success. Who could possibly disagree? The founder of the phrase himself, as it seems. In his book, ‘The Rise Of Meritocracy’, a political satire set in 2033, yet written in 1958, Young sets out how democracy would give way to rule by the cleverest - “Not an aristocracy of birth, not a plutocracy of wealth, but a true meritocracy of talent.” Sounds enticing. Yet, it is this pervasive allure, and the indomitable faith put in the system of meritocracy by westerners, that has vindicated Young’s concern.

One problem with meritocracy, as identified by the philosopher Micheal Sandel, is that it ‘subordinates the role of luck in success’. Whilst entrepreneurs argue that luck is the dividend of hard work, in a country where the average number of applicants per job is 42, luck remains a key determinant in success. As said by no less than Mark Zuckerberg, “We all know we don’t succeed just by having a good idea or working hard. We succeed by being lucky, too..If we’re honest, we all know how much luck we’ve had.” The issue is that meritocracy gives off the false idea that society’s winners are there by merit and merit alone, hence justifying a sense of class superiority. Young’s dystopian meritocratic society envisaged in ‘The Rise Of Meritocracy’ was a state in which ‘The eminent know that success is just a reward for their own capacity, their own efforts.’ Essentially, the rich become rich because they are in many ways superior to the less well off. On the flip side, the working class are led to believe that their comparable lack of economic welfare is due to their inferior makeup. Put best by Young, ‘Their image of themselves is more nearly a true, unflattering reflection’. Our boundless faith in the system of meritocracy only exaggerates this.

The outcome? A look at the current state of world affairs is all that is needed. Donald Trump, who many call a danger to democracy, was far less a candidate against the financial elite than the intellectual elite. Working class Americans were simply sick of being told by ‘experts’ how best to live their lives, lacking a sense of purpose or dignity as a result of their meritocratic degradation.

The western worship of meritocracy has also produced a more malign outcome, the transition into a credentialist society. A university degree is now a necessary condition of entry into most careers. This is combined with the meritocratic ultimatum that, for meritocracy to function, there has to be equality of opportunity in climbing the ladder of success.  Hence, governments have focussed on individual upward mobility to university, materialising in the student loan programme in the UK, to allow every student access to the first rung on this ladder. This has produced an endemic of moral hazard, leading to, as Dominic Cummings puts it, ‘Third rate higher education institutions’. The fact that male graduates of 39 UK universities will have lower average earnings than had they not attended university is all that is needed to spell out this concern.

Where next for meritocracy? Meritocracy has undeniable merit (excuse the pun), and I am yet to come across a superior theory of social organisation. Yet, far from Young’s ‘IQ + Effort = merit,’, it seems western meritocracy has declined into IQ + Effort + Uni Degree + Luck = merit, all on a scaffold of a lack of equality of opportunity, hence invalidating the presence of meritocracy in the first place.

Micheal Sandel, the 'worldly philosopher’ points to three solutions. The first is restoring the dignity and purpose of work. As Mark Carney puts it in his recent Reith Lectures, we have transitioned from objective value theory to subjective value theory. In layman’s terms, instead of valuing goods and services for the talented work that goes into them, we value them for the benefit they service to the consumer. In today’s world, the price is no different to the intrinsic value of a good. Consequently, low paid work is seen as of less value than better payed employment; this needs a radical overhaul. If we are to better appreciate the intrinsic value, uncorrelated with price, of all employment, lower paid workers would no longer feel a sense of subordination. Hence, this would be a way to reduce this dangerous externality of meritocracy. 

I come, rather strangely, back to Mark Zuckerberg’s speech to best illustrate this point: “One of my favourite stories is when John F. Kennedy visited the NASA space center, he saw a janitor carrying a broom and he walked over and asked what he was doing. The janitor responded, “Mr. President, I’m helping put a man on the moon.” It is this culture that we have to foster. To quote a better esteemed individual, Martin Luther King Jr., reflecting on a strike by sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, shortly before he was assassinated: King said, "The person who picks up our garbage is, in the final analysis, as significant as the physician, for if he doesn't do his job, diseases are rampant. All labour has dignity." 

Secondly, higher education needs not to be a barrier to entry to dignified employment. In the US, Ivy League universities take more students from the top 1% than the bottom 50%. While the number of variables determining educational success is great, this surely indicates a strong correlation between privilege at birth and educational success. How can top quality academic institutions continue to be arbiters of success if their outcomes are evidently derived from inequity? As spoken by Micheal Sandel, “We should focus less on arming people for meritocratic combat, and focus more on making life better for people who lack a diploma but who make essential contributions to our society.” This will simultaneously improve social mobility, whilst preventing the overconsumption of university places that fail in expanding prospects.

Lastly, and most importantly, in order to overcome our meritocratic hubris, we have to appreciate the role of luck in success. Good fortune remains an undeniable determinant of success, my favourite example being world renowned actor Harrison Ford. Ford burst into the limelight after being hired to install some cabinets in the director’s home and was invited to transition from carpenter to actor. As Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman puts it: ‘Success = Talent + Luck. Great success = A little more talent + A lot of luck.’ Appreciating the role of luck can prompt a humility- the humility needed to overcome the meritocratic degradation of the working class.

Meritocracy is both the problem and the solution. Whilst the framework makes for equitable social distribution the problem is that we fail to live up to the meritocratic principles we proclaim. Equal opportunity for all needs not come with perceived superiority of economic success. Universities need not to be a necessary condition for dignified employment, and intrinsic value needs not to be dictated solely by price. Whilst this article somewhat focusses on the internal sensations of purpose, dignity and worth, these have grave political consequences. One of the most potent sources of the populist backlash is the sense among many working people that elites look down on them, and we need not populists. Meritocracy is a young ideology, and it still has lots to learn. 

Freddie Cooke