Daniel Markovits | Meritocracy Debate | Propositon (3/8) | Oxford Union

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If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again...The idea of meritocracy has dominated political discourse since the term was coined by Michael Young in 1958. More than 60 years on, accusations of cronyism and inequality still hound The Establishment. In a society where wealth, education, and connections are crucial, the merit of meritocracy is drawn into question. Is meritocracy a failed relic of the past or a guiding light for the future?
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Proposition Speakers
1. Professor Daniel Markovits
Professor of Law at Yale Law School. In 2019, he authored The Meritocracy Trap, in which he argues that ‘meritocracy has become the single greatest obstacle to equal opportunities in America today’.
2. Adam Boulton
Current Editor-at-large of Sky News and presenter of All Out Politics and Week In Review. He has written for publications including The Times, The Guardian, The Spectator, The New Statesman and The Independent.
3. Sarah Atkinson
CEO of the Social Mobility Foundation, which offers support networks and opportunities to students from lower-income backgrounds.
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Opposition Speakers
1. Adrian Wooldridge
Current Political Editor and columnist for The Economist. Earlier this year he published The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World.
2. Helen Goulden
CEO of The Young Foundation, which aims to develop better connected communities across the UK in a bid to tackle strutural inequality. The Foundation has incubated over 80 organisations including the Open University.
3. Bim Afolami MP
Conservative MP for Hitchin and Harpenden. He is the patron of numerous charities, including Harpenden Spotlight on Africa, Growing Resilience in Teens, and Tilehouse Counselling.
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[@muspul7727]

Earnest, brilliant, and eloquent

[@youtuber6185]

So why is he speaking on this subject? What gives him the merit? Is he disadvantaged ? No …. So isn’t it hypocritical to speak about meritocracy while enjoying all the benefits from that? Surely he could have let a homeless person fly first class to Oxford to speak on this subject. Surely he could give up his position at Yale to a person of color. No? Too much? So he only is against meritocracy for us but not for him

[@arch-verse]

His book was an eye opener, but I will raise my kid in much the same way because I rather he succeeds in this flawed system than suffer under it

[@qn57]

What if your kid will end up living in a society that increasingly rejects meritocracy and makes your meritocracy-trained kid suffer even more?

[@CoffeeCup1346]

I think his point was, that if you don’t think your child isn’t suffering under this system, you’re mistaken.

[@ye333]

In a meritocracy the elites are smug. Without meritocracy the elites can do so much more than being smug lol.

[@SkillUpMobileGaming]

"lol" you act like he hasn't put forth alternative policies to be enacted that would make our current system better, like democratizing education so the most rich and privileged aren't the ones getting all the access to opportunities rather than those that need it most. You talk a lot about smugness for someone so full of it (as well as ignorance).

[@MNaeem5]

@ye333 Did you watch the actual video?

[@nagsen4921]

I like this debate so much . 👍

[@ivantamayoromero1668]

So brilliant! 🙌🏾 I do so admire Daniel Markovits.

[@constitution765.]

So very inspired speech ।।।

[@abraham802]

the problem with our form of meritocracy is the lack of power in the lever that propels the disadvantaged into positions of power.

[@jacquelinewatt1241]

Well said 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[@thinhngo2718]

Daniel Markovits is not only talented but also very brave to told us the truth. I wish to meet him one day.

[@giialiinh]

sooo goodddd

[@debbiebrown381]

Funny how those who “made it,” can navel gaze about how burdened they are with meritocracy.

[@asiansocrates]

Well, they are truly burdened with it. Moreover, saying there is a problem with the system while following it (because well, in the end, you can't change it alone by going against it) is not hypocrisy, especially when they could just ignore it and revel in the benefits they enjoy alone.

[@TeresaElainePhoenixArizona]

Every College Student should be Required to take a Meritocracy Myth Society Sociology UnderGraduate Course to Graduate.

[@TeresaElainePhoenixArizona]

4:55> "It's Not Fun to have That Much Invested in You." Oxford Students respond with a Communal Laugh.

[@Semper_Iratus]

Life is a pyramid scheme, start building yours today.

[@LeaughtFox]

The second point sounds like it took a whole lot of work to get where they are. I wonder if their parents worked just as hard to give their kids a chance to stay in the same economic class.

[@felixarbable]

nobody is saying it doesn't take work, just that most people don't have access to those opportunities so it creates an unfair advantage when trying to talk about who "deserves" what and why meritocracy seems like a bit of a lie.

[@jacksonvillejohn9462]

His book is great!! Meritocracy trap... read it folks!!!

[@weston.weston]

Yes, it is a great book!

[@ScribaeEducantum]

Hey 👋 👏👏👏👌 Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning. Benjamin Franklin

[@s1nn1ck]

Some people value knowledge, some people don't. And that make all the difference.

[@ruthojen]

It’s a brilliant plan: convince the majority that prosperity comes through consumption, make a buck a pound a yen selling the tired and weary bottom shelf food at top prices then assist them with pharmaceuticals to control the inevitable hyperactivity, depression, diabetes, heart disease. Make sure not to teach them critical & abstract reasoning skills and then herald in the technical revolution terminating their jobs and bring back serfdom

[@jean-bosco729]

A+

[@laodesyukur]

I follow what he said, absolutely right, if he is a female, i wanna marriage with him because his idea but sadly he's a male, we can't marriage samesex marriage, samesex attraction only. The true root of meritocracy is investment, this word is powerful for this field, and this investment must becomes from educational field because it's very tied with the children who wants to be invested to this world and after. If those children become good, they would become good deed for every single principal who contacts directly or indirectly with them. We could make a kingdom of heaven, don't you know that ? 🌐🇬🇧❤️

[@asiansocrates]

True eloquence in motion.

[@1969fata]

Isn't he fact that kids of rich parents have more access to better chances the problem of financial inequality and not meritocracy?

[@drake1896]

They go hand in hand

[@moonlightray8493]

I'd say the biggest issue with the proposition is that they repeatedly engage in the assumption that, just because we can atrribute a person's success to their merit, that the inverse must also be true (ie. that an unsuccessful person must be lacking in merit). However, this is a complete non-sequitur. Meritocracy allows one's merit to be a sufficient (and, ideally, primary) means of obtaining success, but no one would realistically argue that it's the *only* determining factor. In no way does the principle of meritocracy disregard the potential influences of bad luck, circumstantial disadvantages, or etc. in limiting an individual's ability to attain success. A meritocratic society does *not* necessitate that an unsuccessful person be regarded as lacking in talent/effort; that argument simply doesn't follow.

[@hlysnan6418]

"Merit is a sham!" Remember that pearl of wisdom the next time you put your life in the hands of a surgeon or airplane pilot...

[@user-fy9fr3bc7v]

What do you make of the other three aspects of his argument, ie the actual substance of what he's saying? Did you sincerely conclude after listening to him that his argument is that airline pilots should be fired?

[@hlysnan6418]

@@user-fy9fr3bc7v Ummm...no. Rather, I doubt the sincerity of his concluding remark. My point is that everyone becomes a meritocrat when a position of terrible responsibility is being considered. The ability to do the job IS merit; to have the ability to do it better is to have more merit. Professor Markovits is really just saying that meritocracy isn't fair because, in practice, the ways merit is acquired are often not equitable. In fact, the market, the sciences, the professions etc don't particularly care whether a person came by their merit equitably, so long as they have it. The version of meritocracy that actually exists is imperfect. The investment that Markovits was describing presumably misses many talented children. But that doesn't mean the whole concept should be abandoned. The exclusion which Markovits says is the "design" of our meritocracy is in some instances a way in which our system is less than fully meritocratic. We could do things to fix this. But it's also true that even with the most lavish investment, not everyone can do every job; people are not equal in their innate gifts. A dunce cannot learn to design spacecraft. This, too, may be described as "exclusion", but how could we do without it? Furthermore, in our era, the potential rewards of high cognitive ability are far greater than they were in the past. A medieval serf with an exceptionally high IQ did not have many avenues open to him through which he might have exploited his talents to make heaps of money and climb the social ladder. Whereas nowadays, a prodigy, even one from a modest background, more or less has the world as his oyster. Even if we expropriated inheritances, equalized per-pupil funding, and did whatever else may be necessary and possible to level the advantages between children as they are launched into the game of life - i.e. very closely approximated a true meritocracy - our society would look different, but greatly unequal outcomes would still result...and that, I suspect, is what really bothers Professor Markovits. His second point is silly. He thinks the winners in a meritocracy have bad lives because they have to work hard to achieve their goals. Say it ain't so! How would he like to be poor? His third point is that the definition of merit varies by time and place, and the one in force in our own societies is somehow the wrong one. It's not clear what Markovits thinks the definition should be; he is extremely vague on this point. However, he must think something counts as merit...if nothing does, then there is no difference between a job well done, and one botched...which brings me back to my quip about highly-skilled and demanding work.

[@mdl9224]

@@hlysnan6418 I don't take what was said to mean that we shouldn't assign a task to the most capable but to mean that being the most capable for a task, even an important one, doesn't render your happiness/wellbeing above anyone else's. Which, let's admit, is pretty common today to believe the opposite. Further more, actually feeling separated in that way from most other people not only worsens other people's lives but your own.

[@hlysnan6418]

​@@mdl9224 If you're saying that one person's happiness is not inherently more important than any other person's, I wouldn't disagree, but that still doesn't provide the missing alternative answer to the question of what merit is.

[@mdl9224]

​@@hlysnan6418 Bit of a long response sorry. Ok, so here is my opinion on the matter. The problem is about self image and not about using merit to decide how is the best person for the job. We agree that merit understood as your proven capability to perform a task is a good predictor of your capability to perform it in the future. But this task completion fitness type of merit is getting mixed in our society with the entitlement kind of merit. Meaning that merit performing a task is being translated into entitlement to a hierarchical position in society. Giving us a highly educated/economically successful strata of people that believe themselves substantively different (superior) to the rest. I don't really care about some people having more money that others, is the feeling yourself different in that sense what is worrying to me. I would equate it to a lottery winner thinking to himself - "Why should I care about these people's money problems? If they don't want to be poor any more, why don't they win the lottery like I did?"

[@acman1]

Brilliant at arguing that we should go back to the Middle Ages!

[@mikesousa4491]

Home boy fucked shit up without notes

[@MrPavu4ok]

so? now what?

[@mcmxli-by1tj]

He's talking cultural capital without referencing the concept.

[@marvinwilliams7938]

Totally wrong. Get everyone to the same starting line and then let the winners win and losers lose. Equality of opportunity not equality of outcome this is an absolute objective fair and just truth of a real meritocracy.

[@c.c.5910]

You missed his third point where people who "win" are not winning in the human sense. You see this when a successful professional retires to a farm and then raises their kids on organic produce as well as hard work. The professional life was not fulfilling even if it did pay for the more human life they really wanted. The issue is compounded when the people who do see the inhumane system as "good" because they're on top. Another way to put it - suffering at the bottom of society takes place because this large group of people didn't fit into the "right" mold. Did you go to an elite school? Were you in an elite program at that school? Were you top of your class? If you answered no to these, you're a loser. Why should we allow a loser like you to comment on the internet at all? Why should anyone listen to you? Why should you have value?

[@AndrewDeFaria]

So what? Rich peopple have boats and yatches too. Big deal. It's one of the reasons to strive to get rich. Why not allow them to use what they've obtained? AFAICT inequality is not bad unless you include jealously. One person getting rich does not detract from another person.

[@derrickg3503]

It blows my mind that these Privileged people with their “Higher Education” still incorrectly identity the state of different countries as Meritocratic. In a Merit Based society, there is no privilege, no private schooling, no nepotism or cronyism, everyone starts the race at the exact same spot. How this gentleman states that parents afford their children a better education because they’re wealthy, that’s prohibited in a Meritocracy because it creates unequal opportunities. Therefore those same children that get into prestigious careers by their parents money(essentially) shows that we don’t live in a meritocracy but rather a Capitalist Nation with Cryonism/Nepotism as the deciding factors for practically everything.

[@provis3052]

Snake!

[@jaleelbrowm693]

Yesir

[@denniscallan4933]

Bunch of nonsense! I am lived proof that Meritocracy works.

[@tomspaghetti]

Yes, but are you happy?

[@greenman7612]

@@tomspaghetti- extremely happy!

[@delsere7095]

Ascribing obesity, drug use, alcoholism among others as a consequence of meritocracy seems like a bit of a reach to me. Its so flawed and drastic in simplification, that it seems to me to be the positive litmus test for an ideologue. What is the hard evidence? At what cost? And, compared to what? This speaker's arguments completely ignored the last two questions. It is a fools task to ridicule any system or idea without sound argument for a proposition for improvement or alternative.

[@ye333]

Basically the argument is that any meaningful connection between parents and children should be cut.

[@tomcoburn5258]

Uh no? Where does he even imply that lol

[@paulsturgul5829]

Successful graduates of Oklahoma State want to send their children to Yale.@@tomcoburn5258

[@eddychinwe1163]

This side of the debate simply advocates for mediocrity.

[@Emergent_Mind]

He seems to be blaming meritocracy for the negative outcomes of unbridled capitalism.

[@dishman1966]

You mean the negative outcomes of freedom to trade? Freedom doesn’t guarantee you anything but I will take it over being bridled by government stooges.

[@JonesNoahT]

Exactly. Meritocracy does not prescribe poverty. It also doesn’t say that those with less merit are at fault.

[@nickelmouse451]

There is a bunch of economic work done on social mobility in Denmark which shows that social mobility is poor even in this very bridled form of capitalism. The reason is that the investment that families make in their children is structured by class. (There is an Econtalk podcast on the topic called 'James Heckman on Inequality and Economic Mobility'). So unbridled capitalism probably isn't the root cause.

[@hebejeebies2452]

Or is that just a load of bollocks ?

[@JimboJones2022]

What a bunch of BS!

[@ronaldreagan-ik6hz]

What a joke

[@derrickg3503]

It blows my mind that these Privileged people with their “Higher Education” still incorrectly identity the state of different countries as Meritocratic. In a Merit Based society, there is no privilege, no private schooling, no nepotism or cronyism, everyone starts the race at the exact same spot. How this gentleman states that parents afford their children a better education because they’re wealthy, that’s prohibited in a Meritocracy because it creates unequal opportunities. Therefore those same children that get into prestigious careers by their parents money(essentially) shows that we don’t live in a meritocracy but rather a Capitalist Nation with Cryonism/Nepotism as the deciding factors for practically everything.

[@vv6533]

Good point. If everyone starts at the same level with equal opportunity then Meritocracy is the best system. But it is simply not realistic. Meritocracy is flawed if implemented in a society with unequal opportunities which is the world that we are living in. But what should be the alternative to meritocracy?

[@derrickg3503]

@@vv6533 Meritocracy is the Best System, when implemented correctly. Therefore, like you’ve already mentioned it’s flawed if implemented in a society with unequal opportunities. For what it’s worth, Singapore is the closest thing to being a Fully Meritocratic society. However they’re having issues with Unequal opportunities because they’ve refused to prohibit private education. It is completely realistic when you: -Prohibit/Outlaw Private education & Privileges. -A Meritocracy Requires a 100% inheritance tax to fund the Best Quality education for all of society. -Outlaw Nepotism and & Cronyism These are topics I’m covering in my upcoming book that will be released soon. As for the Best Alternative? Unfortunately nothing could hope to match a Fully Actualized Meritocratic Society. If something was to come close? Perhaps a Technocracy comes to mind. Still having emphasis on the best capable, The Experts, to run Society.

[@vv6533]

@@derrickg3503 I think Michael Sandel put it perfectly. Meritocracy produce winners and winners take all and it is not a desirable outcome he says. He advocates for wealth redistribution and social democratic society where people are are taxed 100 percent of their inherited wealth. I somewhat agree to his points. I'm still not completely sold on those ideas though

[@derrickg3503]

@@vv6533 Yes a meritocracy does produce Winners. It produces a Society of Achievement and Excellence. And under an appropriate meritocracy the winners are greatly rewarded but not at the expense of robbing other citizens of their Chance for Equal Opportunity and their chance to join to the “Winners”. The Rewards are great enough to an extent to where it will motivate all to participate in the Meritocracy, and the Greater Collective. However they are not absurd amounts of rewards that are left unchecked. A meritocracy in essence is meant to end the Rich Elite that hoard all of the wealth for themselves and their Family. Hence the Inheritance Tax. That Tax is part of the Wealth Redistribution. Would one rather have the capability of excelling based on their Talent/Merit? Or would they rather want equal outcome, through diversity politics? The latter is unfortunately what we are implementing now in the USA. With the latter, everyone ends up at the same destination whether it was based on skin color or political ideology that ensured the outcome. It’s not taking into account what they did to earn that Outcome. Did they sit around all day doing nothing? Why should they be given such rewards for their laziness? Now, for Meritocracy to take its place, we need to Implement Positive Liberty, I.e Social Capitalism. A Meritocracy must have the best resources available to all for everyone to share in the Wealth of the Nation. Unfortunately with Michael Sandel, I think a point he fails to touch on is that a Meritocracy has never existed in the USA. It is a fatal error to judge a meritocracy based on a society that has never been/adopted any of the concepts from one. We have never been Merit Based. It’s has always been Capitalist in nature. Predatory Capitalist at that. And those with the Capital always have those who can accept/give favors. One thing I can agree with him on is that’s it harmful to believe you’ll excell currently based on your merit. Most instances, you won’t. Because there are too many I’ll informed minds in decision making. Whether it be bias, or because of nepotism. But perhaps he should clarify his stance to that exactly. A Meritocracy has Never existed in the USA. Therefore you shouldn’t expect to achieve anything based on your merit, because it’s not What’s focused on. People are more concerned with who you know, where you went to school, might even be fired for something that you say because it goes against the current status Quo.

[@vv6533]

@@derrickg3503 Not everyone can be winners no matter how hard they try. That's the brutal truth. If there are winners then there gotta be losers as well otherwise it means nothing to win. Look at his recent debate. Winners rig the system to their advantage and it's inevitable. That's one thing but if you don't want winners then it's punishing talents. So I don't know which is morally right to do.