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Merit is in the news again. Upon announcing the executive order ending federal government DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) offices, President Trump disingenuously asserted that the termination of these programs would be the mechanism by which to return the federal government to merit-based hiring and promotion. Merit’s return to the news gives me an opportunity to review why the concept and reality of American meritocracy has come under such sustained and persuasive critique.

On the face of it, merit is generally a good idea. When you want a job well and efficiently done it makes sense to hire the person with the best combination of knowledge, skills, experience, and work ethic. The problem is the -ocracy part of meritocracy: that the meritorious are fully deserving of the financial and status rewards of their efforts and, based on their meritorious efforts in one social domain, deserve to control the levers of society. An extreme contemporary example is Elon Musk, who no doubt believes he is deserving of his half-trillion-dollars in wealth, and that he is, therefore, perfectly capable of properly identifying federal government budgets to cut.

The critics of meritocracy deny that Musk or anyone “deserves” the status and monetary rewards or penalties that result of effort. First, because the rewards and penalties are socially determined, usually by elite decision-makers, rather than somehow the natural, divinely-given dessert of human effort. And second, no person acts alone, contextlessly, resourcelessly. The claim of meritocratic deservingness stands on the shoulders of the self-making myth: that each of us deserves the rewards or penalties that come our way because they have been earned through mere self-effort. No critic of meritocracy denies self-effort, nor individual responsibility for self-effort. What galls the critics of meritocracy is the unacknowledged, if not outright denial of, myriad unearned and unequally-distributed enablers of achievement.

Not sure what I mean by unearned enablers? As an example, here are only a few of the unearned enablers that have significantly contributed to my achievement, as well as the achievement of tens of millions, and in some cases, hundreds of millions of Americans.

Myself and 300 million other humans won the birthright citizenship lottery, citizenship in the most geopolitically powerful and economically successful nation on Earth: America. We weren’t born in Sudan, which has suffered from civil wars during most of my lifetime. Nor were we born in Madagascar, with a per-capita GDP less than one percent that of America‘s. A good portion of Americans’ individual achievement is enabled having won the citizenship lottery.

Myself and tens of millions of Americans won the genetic lottery. We each inherited a chromosomal foundation that determined our physical and mental competence. We enjoy an average or better IQ, we avoided congenital infirmities and diseases, and we enjoy a set of limbs and organs that have enabled a normal set of physical capabilities. A good portion of Americans’ individual achievement is enabled having won the genetic lottery.

Myself and tens of millions of Americans won the upbringing lottery. The first twenty-two years of our lives during which our present and future were molded, despite the occasional family crisis and teen apathy, by two industrious, nurturing, and themselves advantaged, parents. We enjoyed a safe and resource-rich childhood and lived with examples of a morally-upright and politically-active adulthood. A good portion of Americans’ individual achievement is enabled having won the upbringing lottery.

These and other lotteries, including race and gender lotteries, have advantaged tens of millions of living Americans, enabling achievements unavailable or less available to lottery “losers.”

Meritocratic deservingness breeds arrogance, entitlement, judgment, and selfishness among believers. These attitudes are corrosive of solidarity, fairness, and democracy — social values in short supply these days. We can do better, Central Oregonians. Let’s acknowledge our unearned enablers, the lotteries we’ve won not earned, and cultivate the prosocial virtues of humility, gratitude, sharing, and concern for the wellbeing of all.

Editor’s Note

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