As I see it, there are two components of a meritocracy: does merit imply success, and does success imply merit.
Many of these arguments are meant to prove that success does not imply merit. This may be true, there are plenty of rich people who did not work hard to earn their wealth.
These arguments should be removed.
We should be more worried about whether hard work implies success or not. After all, this is what will determine if people decide to work hard or not.
There's also the element of chance. A technical acquaintance of mine has a daughter who went to school for TV and film writing, and managed to land a job writing for a popular show a few years back (Ugly Betty), and make a considerable amount of money in the process.
His take on her success was as follows - in that career even if you were really good, you have a small chance (2-5% he estimated) at being in the right place at the right time (had writing credits on a show that didn't get canceled, and became popular) in which case you could make a very impressive income.
On the other hand, you could go get an engineering degree and get a job at an engineering firm. You'd have a much better chance (85-95%) at getting a job that paid well provided you did the job properly, although possibly not as well as the wildly successful writer mentioned above, and it may not be what you wanted to do. The implication is that he would have rather had her get that kind of job, but considering the outcome was quite proud of her.
I tend to think of internet startups like the TV writer gig - it's a way to have a small chance at hitting the goldmine, but less of a sure thing.
Similarly, my father is a pediatrician. He often sees kids for physicals who want to get into professional sports because they really dig soccer/basketball/football/etc. He does a math exercise with them, going over how many people are drafted a year, and basically it comes down to "Are you the best person this year in the entire state?", which the answer is usually no. Not to crush their dreams, but it's an honest dose of reality
So, in short, people should look at the chances of success before pursuing a field. Internet startups are a pretty good chance, especially considering that doing them often involves a lot of technical and business self-investment that can carry over into other jobs if it doesn't work out.
"Second, we identify a variety of nonmerit factors that suppress, neutralize, or even negate the effects of merit and create barriers to individual mobility."
so clearly the article is concerned with whether merit implies success.
"First, we suggest that while merit does indeed affect who ends up with what, the impact of merit on economic outcomes is vastly overestimated by the ideology of the American Dream. Second, we identify a variety of nonmerit factors that suppress, neutralize, or even negate the effects of merit and create barriers to individual mobility."
"Rather, we argue that meritocracy the idea that societal resources are distributed exclusively or primarily on the basis of individual merit is a myth. It is a myth because of the combined effects of non-merit factors such as inheritance, social and cultural advantages, unequal educational opportunity, luck and the changing structure of job opportunities, the decline of self-employment, and discrimination in all of its forms."
In short, because the universe already has an economic "state" and is changing independent of what any one individual does, the value you may derive from your own individual merit is extremely variable.
Sometimes life is unfair, but I hold as an article of faith that almost anything can be made better by getting off your butt and working hard. For me personally, there's almost nothing of value in that study. It wouldn't change my approach to life.
This article isn't so much about individuals and their decisions but society. The claim isn't that "hard work doesn't pay off". The claim is that "hard work pays of more for some than others based on non-merit factors."
Even if they are correct, this shouldn't affect our behavior. We should still try to climb to the peak of our local maxima. Even if hard work pays off more for others, it makes sense economically for me to work hard if it pays off some.
This doesn't mean we should ignore the study either. It is important as a society to continually self-evaluate to ensure that the systems we have in place are moving us toward our ideals. The purpose of a paper like this isn't (necessarily) to push a set of ideals, but to help us self-evaluate.
Why what? Why climb? Or why "local maxima"? Or just a general why, for the heck of it? If it's the latter, then my answer would be the following question: Is there any reason not to?
It would only have value to you if you were concerned with social justice. (not meant as an insult, but I'm guessing it's not terribly important to many people)
The article points out that although hard work might pay off, owning appreciating assets pays off with significantly more consistency in the US economic system.
And unlike hard work, one can inherit appreciating assets.
People aren't paid according to their merit, they are paid according to the market value of the good or service they produce. A history major might have "merit", but they might have to go to law school to leverage it in the market.
The social policy conclusions are thrown off by this assumption that people should be paid well because they are smart.
The article fails to define merit, perhaps, because, it is extremely hard to define in practical and objective ways.
Failing such definition, any arguments can be made, but they will not necessarily be about merits, but maybe about agendas or thoughts or beliefs or simply opinions that the author has.
Let me take education as the only example. It states that people "tend to" get the education of their class, that is rich people private and ivory league, middle class public and public universities and the poor inner cities schools and no university. Now, the word "tend to" is extremely important. It acknowledges that it is not a rule or anywhere close to it, but somewhat the norm. So that, most people, say 80% do so. Why do the 20% not however? Might it be because the inner city poor kid is intelligent enough and has the right attitude to focus on his studies and go to university? And might it be that the rich guy does not and drifts off into a world of drugs and depression?
Merit is a quality which we define almost to be a prerequisite for success. We know it when we see it, but, to define it, is hard. In the absence of such definition, then, I really can not criticise the article because many of the points it makes may be correct in one view, but quite wrong in another.
Lets take inheritance. Of course a rich person has many benefits, money, the right attitude, the culture as the article defines it, or, nowing the rules of the game. So, seeing as this kid has all of this, then, does not whatever he acquires means that he did so because of merit? Or are we trying to define merit in the way of inherent intelligence, that is, we are all born with a certain equal number of merit, thus, there should be an equal number of poor people in each state. Or is merit a highly complex phenomena, blind indeed to your environment at times, and quite susceptible to it at other times.
I think, for me, merit is this certain quality which does contain ambition, intelligence, high self awareness, and perceptive attitude, a tendency to use reason and logics, as well as environmental factors such as a warm and loving family and others. The combination of this all is that you have these certain attitudes which make you competent and able and willing to do certain things which may lead to achievement and higher earning potential and above all, it gives you the ability to be in control of your environment and control it when things go out of control or try your hardest to do so with all your might and ability and get back on your feet.
I believe that there are some factors that I do not have control over that restrict me from moving up. The things I was born with, inheritance, social status, race and the things I can't directly control such as luck or the discrimination of myself by others are just challenges to overcome or circumvent so that I might merit the success I seek through hard work and perseverance.
Whether the article is right or wrong I will not accept that I cannot get ahead through my "individual merit, which is generally viewed as a combination of factors including innate abilities, working hard, having the right attitude, and having high moral character and integrity" which are all things that I can and do control.
"'a cobination of innate abilities, working hard, having the right attitude, and having high moral character and integrity' which are all things that I can and do control."
Do you really control those?
Let's take them one at a time:
- innate abilities - Do you control your innate abilities? The whole point of them being innate is that you're born with them. Do you control what abilities you're born with? If so, I'd sure like to learn that trick.
- right attitude - If you're depressed that could put a damper on your attitude. And no, seriously depressed people can't just "snap out of it". And it's not their fault they're depressed. Much the same could be said about various other emotional and psychological issues that could hamper having a "right attitude". And this doesn't even get in to the question what the "right attitude" is, or in to the phenomena of "learned helplessness".
- having high moral character and integrity - Much of this is due to the environment you grew up in, and your family and friends. Not much you can do about any of those except your friends. And to spurn anyone who wants to be friends with you usually takes a whole lot more consciousness and "character" than most kids have. And if they do have it, it's likely due, again, to the influence of their environment, friends, and family.
Finally, there are other, more philosophical issues such as whether anyone has free will at all. If we don't have free will, then (by definition) we have no control over what we do.
You're right that you can't change the abilities you are born with but if you do use the skills that come easy to you then you can learn new abilities or work around your inabilities with those you had from birth.
I've been depressed and suicidal and if you believe that genetics contribute to it then it runs in the family since my father and brother also suffered from it. One of the most wonderful things about depression though for me was with the help of medication I was able to overcome it. Depression is just one medical issue that can effect your "right attitude" but with the right assistance you can work through those problems. You have control over your attitude. (Up to a point, there are cases where the brain as magnificent as it is will not function normally and can result in a permanent inability to have the "right attitude")
I don't believe that we are a sole product of our environment, we aren't what society made us. I haven't always had "high moral character and integrity" but I've change how I think over time about my life. You can change how you think, I believe we aren't set in stone completely.
Ah and then free will comes into play. I believe we have free will and thus we have complete control and responsibility for what we do.
The poverty rate in the U.S is about 17%. By your logic, those 17% are not getting ahead because they do not have innate abilities, they dont work hard, have the wrong attitude or dont have moral character and integrity.
Don't you think that is a rather sweeping assertion!
By your logic, those 17% are not getting ahead because they do not have innate abilities, they dont work hard, have the wrong attitude or dont have moral character and integrity.
The explanation that the poor "don't work hard" seems spot on. About 80% of the poor don't work at all, and 90% or so don't work very hard (full time).
Furthermore, the claim that the poor have the "wrong attitude[1]" is also fairly well supported. Here is a recent paper, getting quite a bit of play, which argues that the poor have a higher time-discount rate than the rich. (There is a lot of work concurring with it, see the citations for example.)
Its important to differentiate the cause from the effect though. Attitudes leading to poverty, lack of hard work and various other related factors can very well be the effect of poverty. There are plenty of studies supporting that premise. Here is a relevant story:
After I finished and reread my comment I thought the same, my feelings didn't dispute the article. I decided to comment anyway because of just how strongly I felt on the subject. And thank you.
The article is largely trying to, in effect, refute the usefulness of HN. If merit counts for little, i.e., if reading about and doing all the things that are discussed on HN is a waste of time, then why is this site here and why are you reading it?
If you save and invest $40 a day for the next 35 years you can retire comfortably, though you won't normally be rich. Deferral of gratification will conquer a lot in a reasonably free society. That's harder now, as inflation punishes those who save and we're seeing rising prices everywhere except housing prices.
> The article is largely trying to, in effect, refute the
> usefulness of HN. If merit counts for little, i.e., if
> reading about and doing all the things that are discussed
> on HN is a waste of time, then why is this site here and
> why are you reading it?
I don't think the article is trying to say that work (or entrepreneurship) is independent of wealth, just that it is not nearly are correlated as people would like to think.
The article is probably not useful to an individual trying to optimise their own wealth; it is, however, useful when it comes to the evaluation of public policy (which is a duty of all citizens in democratic countries).
Even if reading HN didn't help you "get ahead" doesn't mean it has no value.
It has lots of value for me as a procrastination tool and simply because I find a lot of the articles and the discussions here interesting, stimulating and educational. Whether or not it helps me to "succeed" is quite far down the list for me of the reasons I value it.
>"The article is largely trying to, in effect, refute the usefulness of HN."
The usefulness of HN is that it provides information relevant to those towards the top of the income distribution. To assume that the the income of HN readership approximates the income distribution of the US population strains credulity.
"We suggest four ways in which American society could be made more genuinely meritocratic.
First, current forms of discrimination could be reduced or eliminated.
Second, the wealthy could be encouraged to redistribute greater amounts of their accumulated wealth through philanthropy in ways that would provide greater opportunity for the less privileged.
Third, the tax system could be redesigned to be genuinely progressive in ways that would close the distance between those at the top and the bottom of the system.
Fourth, more government resources could be allocated to provide more equal access to critical services such as education and health care. "
The "North Carolina Sociological Association" sounds socialist. Color me surprised.
A system doesn't have to guarantee results in order to be fair. Some people work a lot harder or smarter than others and that is the ultimate source of any wealth discrepancy.
If the conclusions they've draw are illogical then you should point out why. Perhaps the methodology is bad. If so then state why. If you are unable to point out any of these things then why do you not agree with the conclusion?
I found the article to be weak, throughout. Shoddy analysis dressed up with citations of marginal importance. It starts by just asserting that the American dream is that America is a meritocracy. The section with with tables showing American wealth and income distributions concludes with this bit of "reasoning":
> The highly skewed distribution of economic outcomes, however, appears quite in excess of any reasonable distribution of merit. Something that is distributed “normally” cannot be the direct and proportional cause of something with such skewed distributions. There has to be more to the story than that.
Right, so the American Dream is a perfect meritocracy AND that doesn't just mean wealth caused by merit, but it means wealth is supposed to be directly proportional to merit (e.g. contains no winner-take-all dynamics).
It's a long article and I'm not going to address everything it contained, but the facts it cites weren't new or surprising and the analysis wasn't insightful.
...it means wealth is supposed to be directly proportional to merit (e.g. contains no winner-take-all dynamics).
And that merit is assumed to be normally distributed. They also seem to make some fairly strong independence assumptions:
If poverty were exclusively due to individual differences, we would expect rates of poverty to be randomly distributed throughout the county.
This of course makes the implicit assumption that individual differences are neither correlated with location, nor do individuals of high merit change their location. The latter is certainly false...
It's increasingly depressing the extent to which this isn't news any more. But the truth is, it's not at all clear what, given the global economy, can or should be done about it. We could offer free education and health care to everyone, and that still wouldn't bring factory and construction jobs back.
In all honestly, the conclusions drawn by the "socialist" authors don't appear to be that different from those drawn by Carnegie, who robustly defended the idea of meritocracy whilst being practically the embodiment of the self-made man.
We start, then, with a condition of affairs under which the best interests of the race are promoted, but which inevitably gives wealth to the few.... The question then arises...What is the proper mode of administering wealth after the laws upon which civilization is founded have thrown it into the hands of the few?
Men who continue hoarding great sums all their lives, the proper use of which for public ends would work good to the community, should be made to feel that the community, in the form of the state, cannot thus be deprived of its proper share. By taxing estates heavily at death, the state marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire's unworthy life.
The growing disposition to tax more and more heavily large estates left at death is a cheering indication of the growth of a salutary change in public opinion...This policy would work powerfully to induce the rich man to attend to the administration of wealth during his life, which is the end that society should always have in view, as being that by far most fruitful for the people....
Really, you don't have to be harder or smarter working if you have the fortune to be born into a situation where you're in the top 1% of the population that are worth more than the bottom 90% (the article would benefit from some reference to social mobility though). That's not just a problem if you labour under the delusion that wealth is a zero-sum game; it's also a problem if you're one of us that believe that properly functioning and free markets ought to have a real, tangible link to what the mass of the population demands.
Doesn't Warren Buffett advocate points two and three? What a socialist he must be! Either that or you're pretty good at throwing around the word "Socialist" to avoid points of view you'd rather not consider. After all, if you can build a straw man, why bother with the hard work of thinking?
Based on the evidence here, you seem to work less smart and less hard than those around you. So that means you're poor, right?
> First, current forms of discrimination could be reduced or eliminated.
How? (While you're at it, I'd like a unicorn.)
> Third, the tax system could be redesigned to be genuinely progressive in ways that would close the distance between those at the top and the bottom of the system.
We could have a tax system that said that everyone had the same after-tax income. While one might call that "progressive", it would have other effects.
The authors assume that reducing the distance is necessarily a good thing. They're wrong. Equal does not imply good.
The authors think that envy is good and greed is bad. They have it backwards. Tearing someone else down doesn't build you up.
Why is a "genuinely progressive" tax system always considered inherently more fair? I get the basic argument supporting it. But the reality is that a progressive system introduces additional complexity to the codes. And that complexity allows those with means or time to find the loopholes, reducing their effective tax rates. The Warren Buffet income tax anecdote is particularly relevant here.
It seems to me that setting a flat tax rate that is set to equal the expected federal budget would work to effectively solve the swirling issues. Top tier rates would go down, but the majority of the superrich would see their effective rates go up. Fewer loopholes, more direct correlation between the federal budget and your tax sheet. Better transparency. Simpler returns (seriously -- think about how much time/money people would save by not needing tax accountants!)
There would be some unintended side effects, like the accountants as mentioned above. But overall, i would think the net gain would be huge. Of course, it will never happen -- the vested interests love their complex tax system, because they can exploit it. And they love complaining about tax rates as a red herring, to distract from the fact that very few people in the top income rates pay a high rate. http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/taxes-warre...
Many of these arguments are meant to prove that success does not imply merit. This may be true, there are plenty of rich people who did not work hard to earn their wealth.
These arguments should be removed.
We should be more worried about whether hard work implies success or not. After all, this is what will determine if people decide to work hard or not.