Today we're going to take a look at some of the ideas in The Tyranny of Merit and how the idea of meritocracy has contributed to the unrest, polarization and class stratification we see today.

One of the first ideas to get out of the way is that at the beginning was seen as the focus of satirical irony. In Britain in the 1950's all the traits we currently value in meritocracy were seen as predatory and bad for society1. Rising to "what you deserve" was seen as some impossible lie, because society at the time acknowledged how often people got rewards they didn't deserve.

We can see this on display now as one of the "features" of meritocracy yields self-entitled people who figure they did everything on their own. They discount any support that society provided to them via public schools, libraries, city infrastructure or policing2. Having a safe society means you don't have to spend much of your time ensuring your safety. When you have the mental bandwidth left over you can spend it on other things.

The freedom to have this spare mental capacity is something that society provides to some of its people3, but it's mostly white people. It's mostly white men. Women are continually assaulted by men's leers. People of colour have to spend extra time making sure they are safe in neighbourhoods. Sometimes it's because of crime, but it's also because white people abuse them when they don't feel a person of colour belongs in a particular area.

With these extra burdens, women and people of colour don't have the mental bandwidth to show the true value they can produce4.

The second disproving idea of meritocracy is that social mobility in the United States is at an all-time low5. If you're born poor, you're likely to be poor. If you're born to a rich family, they use their extra resources to help you make connections so that you can get into the education you want, even if you don't deserve it. Your parents may be able to simply pay for your placement6. This may keep out those that earned a spot but didn't have parents who could donate huge sums to an educational institution.

Meritocracy has created another class system, which is what merit was supposed to change. Instead of hereditary privilege it now is wealth privilege which trickles from parents to children in a fairly unbroken line.

With hereditary privilege, you could at least realize that you had nothing to do with where you were. It was an accident of birth so your effort had nothing to do with it. Now meritocracy lies to us that it's our own effort so we must be to blame if we didn't make it very far. If we are wealthy, it's ours to keep because we are wholly entitled to the wealth.

Should You Read The Tyrrany of Merit?

If you need more reinforcement that meritocracy is a fake, yes it's a good book. Unfortunately, it stops short of concrete ideas to change the state that the world is currently in as it values merit and effort above all else.

Purchase The Tyranny of Merit on Amazon

Further Reading

Some of these were mentioned in the book and seem like worthy additions ty my library, some have informed my thinking from prior reading.