Meritocracy. The word sounds nothing but good. It means rule by those who have merit. Such merit is usually understood to be academic achievement, a combination of talent and training. This is measured by academic degrees, which in turn are graded on merit: A, B, C, D, or First, Upper Second, Lower Second, Third.
Who would not wish to live in a meritocracy? It is certainly preferable to a plutocracy, in which wealth determines status, or a gerontocracy, in which age leads one to the top, or even an aristocracy, in which what counts are inherited titles and properties.
So meritocracy seems preferable, at least at first sight. But, on closer inspection, things are not so simple.
ILLUSTRATION: YU SHA
For many, France has long been the epitome of meritocracy. Most of those in the top reaches of not only the civil service and the judiciary, but also politics, business, and academia used to be graduates of the famous grandes ecoles. Many then went through the rigorous training to become inspecteurs de finance, senior state officials.
Yet the French elite today are increasingly held in suspicion, and even reviled, by part of the population. Certainly, French leaders are not immune to corruption. The uneasy relationship of money and politics has given rise to several high-profile scandals in recent years. It is no longer clear that France's highly educated leaders are better able to run the country's affairs more efficiently and more honestly than others.
Japan's meritocratically selected bureaucracy, too, faces much the same public opprobrium. Indeed, the bureaucracy itself is often blamed for the country's rigidity and ongoing stagnation.
In Britain, a government heading for its third term in office has said more than once that it wants the country to be "meritocratic." Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's heir apparent, is particularly eager to go down that road. Yet it was a British social scientist (and Labour Party politician), Michael Young, who 40 years ago wrote a much debated book entitled The Rise of the Meritocracy. His was not a description of the road to the promised land, but a dystopian vision of almost Orwellian dimensions. Meritocracy was Young's 1984.
Two central questions raised by Young remain topical today. First, if academic achievement is the entry ticket to power and status, what about the rest? What about those who do not make it to university? How do the other 50 percent fare in a meritocratic world?
They are, Young argued, confined, even condemned to lower-level jobs, with no chance to rise to eminence, or even to a comfortable position of responsibility. According to Young, those who have at least some talent will form a "pioneer corps" of plumbers and builders and other skilled workers. Those who do not even make that grade will remain in a "home help corps" of unskilled laborers.
Young's bleak picture bears an eerie resemblance to today's world. The new underclass is the other side of the meritocratic elite. Immigrants, in particular, do not enjoy the equality of opportunity that the word "merit" suggests.
Indeed, nowadays meritocracy seems to be simply another version of the inequality that characterizes all societies. It may in fact be a particularly cruel form of inequality, as those who do not succeed cannot argue that they were unlucky or kept down by those in power. Instead, they must conclude that they personally failed, and that no amount of effort can save them.
To this must be added another feature that Young described: meritocracy means only that another ruling group closes the gates behind it once it has achieved its status. Those who made it on "merit" now want to have everything else as well -- not just power and money, but also the opportunity to determine who gets in and who stays out.
Sooner or later, Young argued, the meritocratic elite cease to be open; they see to it that their children have a better chance than the offspring of the "pioneer corps" or "home help corps." Like all the elite before them, they become firmly established -- and use all available means to keep it that way.
There is no need to follow Young's argument all the way to the eventual revolution. There is a need, however, for a healthy skepticism towards the claims of a meritocracy based on academic achievement alone. Such a society is not the answer to all our prayers for decency and fairness, or even for sensible and good decisions.
It is far better to remember that when it comes to leadership, many qualities other than a first-class degree come into play. As far as institutions are concerned, we should not allow any one criterion to determine who gets to the top and who does not. Diversity is a better guarantee of openness than even merit, and openness is the real hallmark of a liberal order.
Ralf Dahrendorf, author of numerous acclaimed books and a former European commissioner from Germany, is a member of the British House of Lords, a former rector of the London School of Economics and a former warden of St. Antony's College, Oxford.
Copyright: Project Syndicate/Institute for Human Sciences
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