The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?

Comparing an aristocracy to a meritocracy is a useful exercise in examining the assumptions and desires of a particular society. The difference is the manner in which wealth is attained and retained. In an aristocratic society, being born into wealth would be preferable, but in a meritocratic society, there is a possibility of rising or falling based on one’s merits alone. The difference is largely one of mental perspective, as “meritocratic success brings a sense of achievement for having earned one’s place” (115), and yet a society composed of an aristocracy and serfdom would take away an enormous mental burden: “[Y]our life would be hard, but you would not be burdened by the thought that you were responsible for your subordinate position” (115). The downside of a meritocracy is that it is intrinsically morally arbitrary.

The paradox is that the current meritocracy has created a kind of liberal aristocracy, where the wealthy easily create and pass on their wealth to their heirs while the poor create wealth only rarely and with great difficulty. The two objections that need to be addressed are related to justice, and to the attitudes regarding success. The first objection “doubts that even a fully realized meritocracy, in which jobs and pay perfectly reflected people’s efforts and talents, would be a just society” (120), while the second doubts that even a technically fair meritocracy would fail to be deemed a good society on account of the values that meritocracy champions and instills.