If you want to start a fight among sociologists, tell them that you love meritocracy. But, why? What kind of person hates merit or rewarding merit? In this post, I will give a definition of meritocracy and then discuss why some sociologists have issues with the concept.
I define meritocracy as any social practice that gives more rewards (R) to people who have more Merit, which is a measure of quality that makes sense in a given task. E.g., basketball players might have Merit measured by points score per game and the reward might be salary. Formally, R(Merit 1) > R(Merit 2) if Merit 1 > Merit 2. We can also define meritocracy in statistical terms for any reward. Then, aggregate or average rewards are ordered by aggregate or average merit in the group.
Why would people critique meritocracy defined as reward linked to differences in merit?
Objection #1 - merit order violation. Real world social practices violate the merit ordering of people. In actual examples, people get more rewards when they have less merit. E.g., colleges give a preference in admissions to wealthy kids with lower test scores.
Objection #2 - the privilege objection. People get extra Merit simply by being a member of a group that has more resources for making Merit. E.g., rich people have more money for math tutoring, which leads to more Merit as measured by standardized test scores or grades. So total rewards represent a combination of unearned status and earned reward.
Objection #3 - false merit. The Merit measure does not deserve to be rewarded. For example, you should not get more money at work just because you are more physically attractive - unless you are a model!
Objection #4 - merit rejection. You could argue against the idea that Merit should get your rewards. For example, Marx famously wrote “to each according to their needs,” not “to each according to their merit.”
Objection #5 - distraction. In a given social situation, talking about merit is a distraction from an even bigger real problem. For example, you could argue that the US military does not reward women with Merit but that is a distraction from the bigger point about being too invested in war and militarism. A related idea is that merit is important but we’re better off doing something else.
These five merit criticisms capture a wide range of reactions to meritocracy. If I missed one, please indicate it in the comments.
Now, what sorts of anti-meritocracy arguments are offered by sociologists? My impression is that most sociologists offer either merit violation (#1) or privilege (#2). Let’s think about education. There are plenty of examples of merit violation in schools. For example, universities are infamous for admitting people who aren’t the best in observed merit, such as children of alumni and faculty, wealthy people, athletes, and people in favored racial and ethnic groups.
You also see a lot of appeals to the privilege criticism. Sociologists seem to understand that some aspects of education do link merit and rewards, but they think it’s tainted by status. For example, people who study more or the right way, attend class more and have higher aptitude, do get better grades. Sociologists will then appeal to privilege counterarguments. They might say that people who are smarter or have more time to study because they have wealthier families who are more stable and have more resources. One might even say that the entire stream of education research stemming from Bourdieu (e.g., Lareau, Calarco, or Khan) is just an elaboration of the privilege critique of meritocracy. So the merit-reward link is actually working as intended, but there’s a deeper suspicion about who get the resources needed to make Merit.
What do you think? Did I get the main points?
Bottom Line: Rewarding merit is a tricky thing.
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I don't personally know enough about sociology to comment on the main question you ask. But I will add a few other potential objections to meritocracy. I doubt if any of these would be explicitly appealed to by many (presumptively leftist) sociological critics of meritocracy, so it's understandable that you didn't mention them.
1. meritocracy destabilizes the social order. This was, I believe, the traditional conservative objection to meritocracy, and also why up to perhaps the mid 20th c. meritocratic reforms were associated with the left (Adrian Wooldridge's *Aristocracy of Talent* has a lot of relevant history).
2. meritocracy hollows out the lower classes. If everyone rises or sinks to the social level of their merit, and behavioral traits are heritable (which they are), then over time you'll end up with fewer and fewer people of character among the lower classes. Arguably, this can be as noxious to poorer communities as more concrete material hardships.
3. the "spiritual" cost of meritocracy. Suppose I'm at the bottom of the social totem pole. If I live in a society in which social position is an arbitrary accident of birth, my low class doesn't say anything in particular about me. If on the other hand, I live in a meritocracy where social position is a reflection of one's virtues, I (or others) may reasonably conclude that my low class demonstrate a lack of personal worth.
Great start. There's also a redefinition of merit, the decision that admitting some people who would not otherwise qualify into the circle makes the whole system stronger and is thus a form of merit. Sometimes directly, by encouraging others of merit to apply, and sometimes by signaling to sources of funding etc.