The myth of meritocracy: Only the best and the brightest rise to the top.
Drs. Stephen J. McNamee and Robert K. Miller, professors of sociology at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, challenge the meritocracy myth, or the ideology that proclaims where you end up in the socio-economic hierarchy is a direct function of your own effort and abilities. The professors define “merit” as a combination of innate talent, hard work, high moral character and integrity, and the “right attitude.” They then present data that suggest that the touted correlation between “merit” and economic success is vastly overestimated. Moreover, a combination of “non-merit factors” actually operates to negate true merit and create barriers to individual mobility.
Professors McNamee and Miller tested the following, and here are their findings:
* NO correlation between intelligence as measured by IQ tests and income differences between individuals.
* NO correlation between “hard work” and income differences. Indeed, those who work the hardest physically are often the most poorly paid, while the biggest incomes are created by investments—where no work is done at all!
* NO evidence that the poor are less successful because they have dysfunctional attitudes about school, work and family, thus creating a “cycle of poverty.” Rather, they have learned to adjust their expectations downward based on a more realistic assessment of limited life chances.
* A possible NEGATIVE correlation between moral character/integrity and economic success. The professors cite already well-known corporate and political scandals and suggest that those who actually play by the rules can restrict their own opportunities for upward mobility.
Anyone who has looked for a job has probably confronted the dichotomy of advice which exhorts, on one hand, to “find and follow your passion” by seeking work that utilizes your natural skills, abilities and interests, while on the other hand, conforming yourself to market “demand.” While the job-seeker may ideally want work that utilizes his or her natural aptitudes, the bottom line usually comes down to survival. What no one ever acknowledges is that which skills are going to be valued in the marketplace at any particular time is not only outside the control of a single worker, but also nearly impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy. Friedrich A. Hayek, an Austrian economist who is frequently associated with the Chicago school of economics and neoclassical liberalism, has this to say about the intersection of individual skills, hard work and meritocracy:
“There is little a man can do to alter the fact that his special talents are very common or exceedingly rare. A good mind or a fine voice, a beautiful face or a skillful hand, a ready wit or an attractive personality are in a large measure as independent of a person’s efforts as the opportunities or the experiences he has had. In all these instances, the value which a person’s capacities or services have for us and for which he is recompensed has little relation to anything that we can call moral merit or “deserts.”
From The Constitution of Liberty, 1960.
So, what is the single factor most likely to determine success?
Professors McNamee and Miller suggest that probably the biggest determinant of where one ends up is the effect of inheritance, or the place where one starts. Obviously, individuals born into wealthy families are going to have access to more resources and opportunities—including opportunities to identify, cultivate, and apply their natural talents. In addition to providing better opportunities and insulation from the vagaries of misfortune, individuals from wealthier families have access to higher levels of social and cultural capital. That is, they have greater access to social networks of wealth, power, and privilege as well as the expected behaviors, attitudes and demeanor of those in the upper classes. The biggest advantage of inheritance is access to elite education, which serves as a gatekeeper to better jobs and positions of power and privilege.
