제 20 호 Is Meritocracy Fair?
- 작성일 2023-11-26
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Is Meritocracy Fair?
by Si-ho Park, Reporter
Have you ever heard about “meritocracy”? Meritocracy is the concept of evaluating and treating differently through the ability or achievement of an individual when distributing resources, and the ideas of meritocracy are becoming so popular and widespread significantly in modern society. Meritocracy has been taken for granted as a principle that justifies modern individualism. In the perspective of meritocracy, it is natural that greater rewards go to those who have greater abilities or work harder, while a smaller share will go to those who lack ability and effort, and the resulting inequalities are seen as justifiable. According to meritocracy myths, individuals believe that they are entitled to treat people differently based on their ability, and therefore they give themselves the power to act on their biases unknowingly. People are now arguing that meritocracy, which seemed to have emerged as an alternative to an unequal society, is now ironically deepening inequality. This is the background of the heated ongoing controversy over meritocracy. People are now questioning the fairness of meritocracy. So how do you think? Is meritocracy truly fair and just?
People with different starting lines
https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/how-meritocracy-worsens-inequality-and-makes-even-the-rich-miserable
What is Meritocracy?
According to the Camebridge dictionary, meritocracy is a social system, society, or organization in which people get success or power because of their abilities, not because of their money or social position.
This “meritocracy” has currently become a leading social ideal. People continually return to the theme that the rewards of life—money, power, jobs, university admission—should be distributed according to skill and effort. The most common metaphor is the “even playing field” upon which players can rise to the position that fits their merit. Conceptually, meritocracy is presented as the opposite of systems such as hereditary aristocracy, in which one’s social position is determined by the lottery of birth. Under meritocracy, wealth and advantage are merit’s rightful compensation, not the fortuitous windfall of external events.
Also in Korean society, meritocracy has developed a distribution system that assigns more shares to those who have better abilities or higher social values in industrialization, and a compensation system that mainly focuses on opportunity and fairness of processes and considers the difference in results obtained as justifiable.
By the way, is distribution based on the merits always right and equal? Doesn't meritocracy overlook the other interventions in the outcome, such as luck or opportunity?
Two Contradictions of Meritocracy:
Intervention of Fortune and Deepening Inequality
Although widely held, the belief that merit rather than luck determines success or failure in the world is false. Merit itself is, in large part, the result of luck. Talent and efforts depend a great deal on one’s luck. In a world where you can't be perfect, a talented person who has worked hard does not always have a good chance, and a person with good luck or position does not always outperform someone without it.
Every success story even has such fortuitous circumstances. The US economist Robert Frank, in his book Success and Luck (2016), recounts the long-shots and coincidences that led to the success of his own and of Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder. Luck intervenes by granting people merit, and again by furnishing circumstances in which merit can translate into success. This is not to deny the efforts and talent of successful people. However, it does demonstrate that the link between merit and outcome is tenuous and indirect at best.
Perhaps more disturbing, simply holding meritocracy as a value seems to promote discriminatory behavior. As I mentioned earlier, meritocracy gives people the power to act on their biases unknowingly. The management scholar Emilio Castilla and the sociologist Stephen Benard studied attempts to implement meritocratic practices, such as performance-based compensation in private companies. They found that the unequal treatment of prejudiced discrimination is more evident in companies that explicitly held meritocracy as a core value. The “even playing field” is intended to avoid unfair inequalities based on gender, race, and the like. Yet Castilla and Benard found that, ironically, attempts to implement meritocracy lead to just the kinds of inequalities that it aims to eliminate.
The Economic Impact of Meritocracy
Offering a different perspective, Professor Youli Cho from Singapore University of Social Sciences sheds light on the economic implications of meritocracy. In her view, the unfulfilled promise of meritocracy increased inequality. Meritocracy sees achievement and failure as an individual’s worth, and people gain higher tolerance for inequality, which leads to higher inequality. The relationship between economic growth and income inequality is complicated. Meritocracy bears economic inequality, economic inequality creates economic growth, and the growth draws out meritocracy again. This vicious cycle repeats itself like this.
Income inequality might be justifiable when it reflects differences in skills, effort, and contributions, with meritocratic systems. In this view, rewarding individuals based on merit encourages and motivates others to work harder and develop their skills to compete for desirable positions and rewards, ultimately benefiting society as a whole. But it may also worsen income inequality. Factors such as unequal access to education, systemic biases, and differences in starting points can result in unequal outcomes, even if individuals have comparable merit. And, to go further, a focus on individual success may undermine a sense of collective responsibility and cooperation in the workplace. As such, the meritocratic system has a great influence in many ways, including economy, politics, and society.
“As the meritocracy intensifies, the striving so absorbs us that our indebtedness recedes from view. In this way, even a fair meritocracy, one without cheating or bribery or special privileges for the wealthy, induces the mistaken impression that we have made it on our own.” This is a part of Michael J. Sandel's book, The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? (2020).
Various drawbacks of meritocracy have been raised, but it is also true that there is no clear alternative to meritocracy yet in a liberal democratic society. Therefore, our society should make our own efforts to minimize the side effects of deepening inequality without overlooking them in determining success or failure. Individuals should be humble in their success, considering the effects of fortune, and in society, an appropriate baseline should be set together to mitigate gaps in different starting points, acknowledging inequality in opportunities.
Now, it's your turn to reflect on these ideas and consider your perspective on the role of meritocracy in our lives. Is it really desirable to evaluate a person by ability? In society, are individuals well evaluated for their abilities? How much equality or inequality has meritocracy brought us? How should our society move forward?
Through this article, I hope you will be able to correctly recognize the contradictory aspects of society, accept various opinions in earnest, and think more about a fairer way for everyone to have truly equal opportunity to compete for desirable goods and social positions.
Sources:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/meritocracy
https://www.dbpia.co.kr/journal/articleDetail?nodeId=NODE09319491
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/01/the-myth-of-meritocracy-according-to-michael-sandel/
https://press.princeton.edu/ideas/a-belief-in-meritocracy-is-not-only-false-its-bad-for-you