The Merits of Meritocracy

I remembered seeing a while back a statement that the United States has among the lowest rates of economic mobility of any industrialized nation. But for the longest time I could not find the reference nor the original source. Well, today I found an article that, if it is not the source of the original quote, it well could be. The economic mobility project, www.economicmobility.org, has published a number of reports on class mobility within the United States. Among them is some data comparing the United States to a number of other industrialized countries, mostly European. We are bested by seven other nations. The only other nation with a slightly more rigid class (caste?) system is Great Britain. On the other hand, many of the countries that are more meritocratic are markedly so. Canada has more than twice the mobility. Denmark, the highest on the list, is more than three times the American rate.

http://www.economicmobility.org/assets/pdfs/EMP_American_Dream_F3.pdf

Now some of the true equalizers among us would ask if that is such a bad ranking for the United States. They might argue that a society in which everyone is all about jostling to get one step ahead in the rat race isn’t the healthiest society. And while I might agree with that on some level, it is also observed in the same report that the historical levels of inequality in the United States are higher than they have been in many generations. So combining the two implies that the rich are getting drastically richer, and that for the most part, they are the same families who were already rich for the past couple generations. That does not sound at all equal or fair. The rat race may not be the highest priority in life, but the race should at least be a fair one where every rat has a fighting chance.

One interesting thing about this information is that it seems to be very strong evidence against the conventional conservative wisdom that a strong state (strong welfare state, strong regulatory state, high tax state) encourages dependency and squashes entrepreneurialism. If that were the case, then Scandinavian countries ought to be languishing in a backwater of class inertia, not multiple times more economically mobile than the good ole’ land of red, white and blue opportunity.* Correlation is not causation, of course, but one might be tempted to infer that a welfare state may actually help people actualize their potential and move to a different economic plane than their parents.

So, if our goal is to create a meritocratic economic system with a much higher level of equality of opportunity than our current one (which presumably would lead to a higher level of mobility because economic outcomes would be more authentically tied to effort), should we just beef up our welfare state? In some ways, yes. If people have their basic needs met then there is much more room to focus on more advanced impulses. Classic Maslow. But I’d rather have the economy do the work of providing stable, engaging, productive work and means of subsistence for its citizens. There’s always going to be some stigma associated with any forms of economic assistance, whether that’s deserved or not. (I see our welfare state as a failing of capitalism. Our economy should be able to provide enough living wage jobs for our citizenry and not to have to rely on government subsidies to keep the workforce alive by propping up poverty-wage or non-existent jobs. That’s the moral failing I see far more grievous than any “bad choices” on the part of the recipients of such assistance.) And there’s always going to be some sacrifice in dignity and autonomy when people ask for assistance. I don’t expect our public ideologies to change so dramatically that there will be huge turnarounds on those issues any time soon. If we as a society feel we are “giving” money to people who haven’t “earned” it, then we will feel entitled to intrude upon, judge, order around, and otherwise be disrespectful of the people we are “giving” to. So isn’t there a better way than that?

Even more importantly, how much human potential is being wasted by people spending significant portions of their lives struggling within a social service system rather than following their passions and putting their energy to productive uses?? Why as a society can’t we find better ways to tap into that human power and creativity and resilience?

I wish I knew of a better way. But clearly in a system where money makes money, those who start with it are going to be at an unfathomably big advantage. Something must be done to make the race more fair for the rats. Capitalism seems to be built to serve the needs of capital, and left uninterrupted it seems to create concentrations of capital (and thereby power). Those concentrations make the ideals of mutual benefit within the marketplace and equality of opportunity start to seem a bit shallow. And clearly, shallow is they are.

* Now, this isn’t to say that European countries don’t have some pretty significant economic problems right now. But didn’t the U.S. just shoot ourselves (and the rest of the world) in the foot with our free-wheeling, unfettered entrepreneurial investment creations??

Sawhill, Isabel and Morton, John. Economic Mobility: Is the American Dream Alive and Well? http://www.economicmobility.org/assets/pdfs/PEW_EMP_AMERICAN_DREAM.pdf Accessed June 17, 2010.