The Merits of Meritocracy

with Ernesto Cortes

I’m still thinking about my conversation with the political philosopher Michael Sandel that I posted a few weeks back. In it, Sandel offers his critique of meritocracy, or, in his view, the belief that those who succeed in society deserve their success while those who don’t deserve their failure. That’s an oversimplification, but I find myself stuck on the question of “desert.” If we abandon the idea that those who work hard, live right, and manage to profit thereby deserve the wealth and esteem they accrue, we may disincentivize the kind of hard work and discipline that make for a dynamic, productive economy.

By the same token, discarding the idea of merit entirely may lead us to incentivize behaviors that are bad for everyone. If law-breaking and indolence bring with them no social opprobrium, we’ll find ourselves in a position where there is no good reason to put forth the effort necessary to maintain our society. In the following excerpt from my recent conversation with the organizer Ernesto Cortes, we debate the value of merit. Ernie worries that a society too invested in meritocracy risks abandoning people who, through no fault of their own, find themselves disadvantaged by a changing world.

I’m sympathetic to that position, and indeed we do need to find better ways to ensure such people aren’t simply thrown to the dogs. But doing so ought not to entail discarding the forms of honor and respect we accord those who, through their own efforts, manage to achieve success. Money is an important incentive, but it is not enough. If we as a culture and a society want to reap the benefits of individual success, we need to be careful about who we hold up as role models and who we don’t.

NOTE: We had some audio issues with this week’s episode. Many apologies for the inconvenience.

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GLENN LOURY: Let's move on to talk about about Michael Sandel's book, The Tyranny of Merit. Michael was a guest on The Glenn Show a few weeks ago. He's a professor of government at Harvard and an ethicist and has written books like What Money Can't Buy, in which he, I think very insightfully, distinguishes between the valuations that the market renders and the valuations that are ethically more imperative. I'm not gonna try to completely summarize the argument. People can consult the earlier discussion with Sandel themselves, or better yet, just consult the book.

But he raises a question about the political implications of the kind of stratification that we see in the globalized world that we live in between those with a set of skills that are highly valued in the market and are insulated from the vagaries of trade and dislocation and change that globalization has brought about and those who are vulnerable to those dislocations and who are not doing quite so well. And Michael thinks that the rise of populism in politics in the West, of the United States in particular, is related to this alienation and schism that has arisen, based, justified, and rooted in conceptions of merit that have winners and losers. And the losers are losers not only in their material condition but also in their esteem and their degree of social respect.

Anyway, Ernie, you've been trying to talk to me about this book for a long time. We've both read it and thought about it. I want you to amplify the description that I just gave and then tell me what's on your mind.

ERNESTO CORTES: Just to underscore what you just said, the wonderful metaphor he uses is from the TV series Breaking Bad, where the guy, the teacher, can't make enough money to sustain his livelihood by teaching. He is teaching chemistry, and he learns that he can make a fortune by selling drugs, by making illicit methamphetamine and selling meth. And he becomes a drug dealer.

So the question is, the market for his work as a drug dealer is much more lucrative than his work as a teacher. Which of the ones is socially desirable? Well, Michael says, obviously a teacher, whereas the market, if you believe in the market valuation, would say, no, the drug dealer is more valuable. And so that kind of captures, I think, a lot of what he is saying.

Now, for me there is a notion that people have, who are the winners, that they deserve what they've got. They “deserve” the value of their marginal product. I think I framed it correctly. So because they've created this incremental productivity, they deserve that, whereas people like Frank Knight say, no, luck has just as much to say about why you're successful as anything else. “Well, but we invested in our education, we brought our kids up right.” Yes, but the reason why you're able to do that also has to do with luck, genetics, et cetera. So there's all kinds of unexplained reasons why you're successful.

The biggest concern that he has, that I have, is the hubris the winners have, that they think they deserve what they got. But more importantly, the people who are the losers deserve what they got. And so it's kind of like the parable of the Pharisee and the publican, where the Pharisee says, “Thank you, Lord, for making me who I am. I'm a great human being. I'm a wonderful human. I'm not like this crummy publican, a sinner.” And the publican is saying, “Forgive me, et cetera. I'm a sinner, et cetera.” And so the point is that the ethics of Christianity are the publican who acknowledges this sin is gonna enter the kingdom, whereas the other guy is so full of his own self-absorption, he ain't gonna get there.

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Okay, I gotta ask you something, or I gotta interrupt. I object here. Here's my objection. There's something tautological in saying ... Okay, let me take two people. One of them gets up at 6:00 AM every morning, works twelve hours, goes home and eats, and goes to sleep. Six days a week. Rests on the Sabbath. And he builds a life. The other one gets by with his hand out, bouncing from one to another to another situation and never does a damn thing with his time worth remarking. Years go by.

It could be said of the person who was industrious, “Well, they got the industrious gene. They were just fortunate enough to be born with a disposition and a sensibility that inclined them toward frugality and self-discipline. And the one who was wayward and delinquent had the misfortune of having been born that way. And there's no reason for the person who has this big house on the hill built with years of hard labor to crow about it. He just happened to be the beneficiary there.” Then they're gonna say, “How did he get the wood up to the top of the hill to build that house?” Et cetera. Then they're gonna say, “Who keeps the bandit from coming into his house and taking stuff away from him? There had to be a government, there had to be a state. He doesn't deserve any credit.”

Well, I don't wanna live in a world where a man who works 20 years from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM to build a life can't take credit for that relative to a man who wastes his time, his God-given gift. I think that judgment is not only warranted, I think it's imperative. I think civilization rests on making that judgment. So I deeply distrust this move in which you're gonna dismiss as hubris—

Well, you're being—

Let me finish. I want to talk about another H word, and the word is “honor.” You're gonna dismiss as hubris the fact that I've lived honorably.

No. First of all, I'm assuming we all understand that in order to build up a strong and effective civic culture, there has to be honor, there has to be reciprocity, there has to be humility, there has to be generosity, there has to be a disposition to include people in as much as possible. So all of the virtues you're talking about, all of the discipline that you're talking about is presumed in a strong, civic, vital culture.

But let me take you to the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, where we had a group of fishermen who got up not at six o'clock in the morning [but] at 4:30 in the morning to go out and catch fish with their nets. They did that for 20, 30, 40 years. They earned income, they built decent houses, they sent their kids to college. Then along come—to be fair, probably correctly—environmental regulations which say the nets that they're using are inimical to the vibrancy of the fish. So they can't use their nets anymore. So they're going to meet with their state senator, and they're telling him their situation, and he says to these 50-year-old men who've got a fourth-grade education, fifth-grade education because they worked all their life and left school in order to work for their families, “Well, there's job training programs you can take.”

I wanted to get Vlad the Impaler on that state senator.

[Laughs] I'm with you that that is an insensitive response to the dilemma of these people who deserve better. I don't understand how that relates to the point I was making, however.

Well, the point I'm trying to make with you is that these people, then we can say to them, “They're part of the deplorables. They're part of the people who are the great unwashed.” And one of my best teachers, a guy named Carey Thompson, said, “I stand for the great unwashed.”

Okay, so you're saying not every loser is somebody who sat around on their hands twiddling their thumbs. Sometimes a loser just has had bad luck.

There are all these people who worked their their tail off in construction and manufacturing and did everything they were supposed to do: paid their taxes, paid their rent, paid their mortgage, kept their homes neat, raised their kids. And all of a sudden, their job leaves and goes offshore to China.

Okay, but I want to get back to meritocracy, because what the position I was trying to defend is crowing about my success is not necessarily hubris. Crowing about myself well may be an honor to which I am entitled based upon what it is that I've done with my bare hands. And I want to distinguish between those who do and who don't.

I mean, there's a flip side to this. I'm sorry to go on. I'll be brief. You're a law breaker and I'm not. I'm a law abider and you're a law breaker. You might have hurt somebody, you stole something. Now, is it hubris for me to label you as someone who is deserving of the punishment that you have earned? Is it hubris for me to take pride in the fact that I actually exerted the discipline and self-control necessary to avoid the temptation of doing this illegal act? Am I not entitled to make a distinction, in terms of social standing, between people who do and who do not live in a way that is compatible with similar living for their neighbors.

I'm not against merit. I'm against meritocracy, the ideology of meritocracy. So recognizing and honoring people I think is very appropriate.

And therefore dishonoring people?

But remember the Book of Job. Job was a good guy. He did everything he was supposed to do. And the only reason he's getting punished is because of a cosmic wager that goes on between God and one of his angels. And then, when Job cries out and says, “What did I do to deserve this?” Do you remember God's answer?

No, why don't you tell me.

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the universe? What right do you have to demand an explanation from me?” And so there's some things which are beyond us. And that's why we have mystery and that's why we have awe and that's why we have wonder. Because there are things we cannot grab ahold of and totally explain.

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