12.2 Meritocracy: lights and shadows Flashcards
The reasons for meritocracy
Meritocracy arose as an alternative to the feudal, hierarchical, static society of europe
Mantra: equality of opportunity
Freedom and equality together
meritocracy fits with individuals demands for social justice
Two main issues with meritocracy
The legitimization of inequalities by both the people who perpetuate adn suffer them
The reduction of the social value of citizens actions, their contribution to the common good of society, to the market value
Inequalities legitimized by the winners
the discourse of meritocracy and entrepreneurship often seems to serve primary as a way for the winners in todays economy to justify any level of inequality whatsoeever while peremptorily blaming the losers for lacking talent virtue and diligence (basically you say i deserve to be at the top and you deserve to be at the bottom)
when confronted with data that contradicts this view they try hard to ignore, reinterpret, distort or forget it - for instance by finding imaginary merits to the recipients of fortuitous rewards, or assigning blame to innocent victims
its also in the eyes of the non-winners, the losers legitimize the winners
Inequalities and public policy
those who reach positions of power bind their success only to individual merits, removing the starting conditions, the help they received along the way and the role of luck
Aversion to redistribution and welfarism
Non meritocratic factors
The more he examines his life, the more he looks into himself with complete honesty, the more clearly he perceives that what he has is a gift. Suppose he was an upright man in the eyes of society, then he will now say to himself: “so you were an educated man, yes, but who pai for your education; so you were a good man and upright, yes, but who raised you and taught you good manners and so provided you with good fortune that you did not need to steal so you were a man of a loving disposition and not like the hard-hearted, yes, but who raised you in a good family, who showed you care and affection when you were young so that you would grow up to appreciate kindness- must you not admit that what you have, you have received
Victor hugo, les miserables quote
success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit… They confound the brilliance of the firmament wiht the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud
social value = market value
Our technocratic version of meritocracy severs the link between merit and moral judgement. In the domain of the economy, it simply assumes that the common good is defined by GDP, and that the value of peoples contribution consists in the market value of the goods or services they sell
