By Hadas Weiss, an anthropologist and the author of We Have Never Been Middle Class: How Social Mobility Misleads Us (Verso, 2019). Originally published at openDemocracy
If you want a more just society, don’t accept that you’re a competitor in a rat race.
Jeremy Corbyn’s announcement last month that a Labour government would replace social mobility with social justice as a policy benchmark raised more than a few eyebrows. It goes against received wisdom and bipartisan consensus that social mobility is a good thing. But Corbyn is right to insist that singling out the lucky few leaves the structures of inequality intact, and he is right to place the emphasis on further-reaching motions, such as revamping the education system, to achieve social justice. However, the real problem with social mobility is not that it doesn’t go far enough in making society more just for everyone. It has, in fact, the very opposite effect – deepening and perpetuating social injustice.
Public discourse and media narratives are always reminding us that society is dynamic. No one stands still. Everyone is climbing up or downladders, going from rags to riches and vice versa. Social mobility serves as both a promise and a threat: if we play our cards right we will accrue status and wealth, but we also stand to lose everything if we don’t.
Playing our cards right means committing time and money to education, training and social circles in that hope that they might help us secure better jobs. It means investing in property and financial products that might generate future capital or taking out pension and insurance policies for our long-term security. The idea of social mobility casts each of us as one among a multitude of individuals jockeying for positions that give us a better chance of seizing scarce material resources before others beat us to them.
Seen in this light, social mobility is nothing other than a capitalist version of the age-old strategy of divide and rule: consolidating power and reproducing exploitation by having the powerless duke it out among each other, instead of challenging the institutions that dominate them all.
Most of us have to work for a living: we need full-time jobs to make ends meet and support our families. In the work that we spend most of our waking hours doing, others pocket part of the value that we produce. In this sense, we are both dominated and exploited by our work. This predicament intensifies the more devalued and precarious our work is. But the idea of social mobility encourages us to forget about this exploitation and focus, instead, on what each of us has in terms of property and human capital.
Notice the difference. However diverse our jobs and different our salaries, we have common cause to rally around should our exploitation as workers prove unbearable. No such commonality inheres in our possessions, which cast us as competitors. Downplaying the conditions of our work in favour of our pursuit of ownership means substituting what unites us with what divides us.
With only so many gainful employment opportunities, valuable property, public resources and revenue-generating securities to go around – per market forces of supply and demand – their value is higher, the scarcer they are (or in the case of securities, their underlying assets). Credentials have less pull in the job market once too many people possess them, neighborhoods become less lucrative when anyone can afford to move into them, safety nets grow threadbare when more people fall back on them. And so we have a powerful structural incentive to limit popular access to the things we own.
Our possessions are also stepping-stones to positions whose advantages rely on others being disadvantaged. For example, they help some of us charge the rents that others have to pay. In a competitive environment where risks abound and rewards are hard to come by, we see these possessions as necessary (and sometimes as necessary evils) for getting ahead in life rather than falling behind.
The mad rush for relative advantages compels us to work harder, invest more, and take on greater debt – more than would be required to meet our present needs. This holds true even when we have little notion of the future value of our investments. The all-too-familiar reality of bubbles bursting and property values collapsing alert us to the fact that we invest for uncertain and sporadic returns.
And still, we keep investing and taking on debt for the sake of ownership. We do so out of fear that we will be less protected or have fewer chances of advancing if we don’t. We convince ourselves that if we have more stuff, skills or connections than our peers, we will fare better than they will. We further imagine that in dire straights, those with fewer possessions will probably fall first, cushioning us if we follow them.
Social mobility limits our perspective, in this way, to our peers and their fortunes or misfortunes. So transfixed are we by the image of everyone accruing or losing wealth and status, that we fail to question the social, economic and political forces that determine their value in the first place. The living costs, salary and currency fluctuations affected by property market upheavals, financial crises and geopolitical power struggles, reach us in obscure and roundabout ways. But our individual efforts and their outcomes appear to have more direct consequences.
The connections we draw between our investments (or lack thereof) and their outcomes convince us that if we’re poor or struggling in other ways, we have no one to blame but ourselves. We must not have tried hard enough or invested with enough savvy. And conversely, we take pride in our accomplishments as if they were generated by our efforts and investments alone. Despite our lack of control over the circumstances of our jobs and the value of our possessions, social mobility encourages us to think of ourselves as self-determining individuals.
This perspective undermines possibilities of organising broad and enduring movements for social change. The alliances we are more likely to forge are contingent and opportunistic: we unite with others who possess the same things as we do, in order to limit access to them. We fear that such access might reduce their value and negate the efforts we’d made to attain them. Exclusionary zoning laws that keep lower-income people – disproportionately people of colour – out of more affluent neighbourhoods is one example. The same is true of entry requirements for education, of credit scoring, of insurance-policy criteria, and of policies, like benefit caps, that withhold our public resources from people whose contributions might fall short of what they get out of them.
Social mobility, in sum, serves as an incentive to work harder and expend more, as a distraction from domination and exploitation, and as a barrier to forming durable political movements for social change. Maintaining a certain amount of social mobility is therefore a useful tool in the hands of the agents of accumulation. A great deal of capital is generated by our incessant efforts to advance socially and hedge against decline. Those who pocket this capital have nothing to worry about so long as we cast a wary eye on our peers and competitors alone. By dint of social mobility, capital can continue being amassed globally and distantly and at our expense, leaving us vying for relative advantages in the throes of our common domination.
Social Justice is a bad term. It’s heavily bourgeoisie driven. I propose more economic tribalism of the laboring class and the end of debt.
Ethan Miller, who lives on an ecovillage he helped found in rural Maine, says that he talks to his conservative neighbors about making a good livelihood, and that most everyone will get on board with that. The language allows him to get his interests and values understood in a way that is recognizable, if slightly different in shape than the people he’s speaking to.
I think many on the left make mistakes in the way they talk to people. There needs to be a lot more rural/urban communication. Maybe we could bus groups of city liberal types into the hinterland for some fact-finding tours.
It doesn’t matter what you call it. The ruling class will come along and demonize whatever you come up with. Don’t like the sound of “social justice”? Hmm, wonder how that happened. And who’s responsible.
At the moment we have the worst of both worlds, we adopted meritocratic ideas, but never created a meritocracy.
We don’t tax the rich too much because they have earned their wealth and they deserve to keep most of it.
Those at the bottom are there through their own lack of effort and don’t deserve benefits.
Meritocratic ideas without a meritocracy.
What does a meritocracy look like?
Let’s work it out from first principles.
1) In a meritocracy everyone succeeds on their own merit.
This is obvious, but to succeed on your own merit, we need to do away the traditional mechanisms that socially stratify society due to wealth flowing down the generations. Anything that comes from your parents has nothing to do with your own effort.
2) There is no un-earned wealth or power, e.g inheritance, trust funds, hereditary titles
In a meritocracy we need equal opportunity for all. We can’t have the current two tier education system with its fast track of private school / universities for people with wealthy parents.
3) There is a uniform education system for everyone with no private schools or universities.
The level playing field where the best get to the top.
A meritocracy is impossible to implement. I discuss that a bit in this article:
http://auroraadvisors.com/articles/Fit.pdf
I’d say it’s not only impossible to implement, meritocracy is impossible to define to start with for most (if not all) team efforts.
For individual efforts, meritocracy can very easily slide into competition, where means other than originally intended can be used to win. Do we really want to select for the most functional psychopaths?
we already select for the most functional psychopaths.
to Suburbs’ points, above…
back in the days when Lib/Progs like myself spent our FB time arguing with Randian Libertarians, whenever those creatures would go on about bootstraps and not having any help getting to where they were, and all the rest…I’d say, “fine. let’s try that. but first, we’d need a level playing field: no inherited wealth, no welfare for the rich…everybody starts off with the same resources…else the experiment is fatally flawed before it begins…”
I knew this was an effective tack due to the spittle and froth that ensued.
they wanted to start the experiment from Right Now, with everything where it is, right now.
But all that would do is replicate exactly the situation we already have.
Ergo, we need redistribution….Reparations for the Non-Rich.
on a related note, I’m seeing a marked decline from 10 years ago in ordinary folks defending the super rich…and less upset stomachs over “taking their wealth”.
purely anecdotal, but still.
when everyone i knew was a tea partier to some extent, defense of the super rich was as common as could be.
Well, we do (select the psychopaths), but do we want to?
I think we’d all be better served if we had a reliable, un-gameable test for psychopathy(a tall order, I know…and I’m uncomfortable with the implications(scarlet letter, yellow star, pink triangle, etc))
and perhaps for the psychopaths that do great harm short of murder and rape, a “psychopath’s island”, with ubiquitous cameras, streamed for the enjoyment of the masses….(might be cheaper to just wall up certain places: DC, Wall Street, River Oaks, the Hamptons, etc)
just spitballing here,lol.
we should certainly endeavor to…as with wounded Veterans…stop making more.
I think you might be able to test for psychopathy with functional-MRI studies, by directly measuring brain responses to various emotional/social-psychological stimuli in a way that cannot be faked by simply controlling external affect. But this is not my area of expertise, so I might be wrong.
We need a Voight-Kampff test or a Lens so we can ferret out the zwilniks and send them to Coventry.
Interesting article. I was a bit intimidated when I noted the length but it kept me reading.
I guess we all have inherent biases whether we like to admit it or not (or even realize it.)
Food for thought – thanks.
“Meritocracy” is a term coined by sociologist Michael Dunlop Young to decry a modern version of aristocracy based on credentials.
The only acceptable “ocracy” is democracy.
Thank you.
Michael Young got his son, the “journalist” Toby young, into Oxford university. The son did not have the grades.
That just shows how well he understood how meritocracy really works :)
Must of hurled some mighty fine bootstraps over Harvard’s Great Wall of Admissions …
Democracy is 3 wolves and 2 sheep deciding what is for dinner.
With the sheep blaming each other for why they don’t get to have any dinner.
https://images.app.goo.gl/XCwfFNroCaeeK6nq7
Which one? What we have now would have been, in ancient Athens, considered a full on oligarchy.
If Republicans really believed in their own ideas they’d favor a 100 percent inheritance tax since inherited wealth is of course an “entitlement.” Perhaps it’s time to stop pretending our societies are built around social theories and figure out what they are really built around.
Given the apparent belief of some inherited wealth people (the Koch brothers, perhaps) that they would most certainly be winners, without inherited wealth, in a less regulated, lower tax rate system, we need a mechanism to test that belief.
Perhaps we could have a new system where young, very sizable wealth inheriting, individuals are stripped of their newly inherited wealth (100% inheritance tax) BUT given the advantage of not paying federal income taxes for a period of time (maybe 30 years) on their future earnings.
This would give them an opportunity to show society that they would exercise their “bootstrap lifting” ability on their own and build up their wealth as a consequence of not having to pay taxes to a government “getting in their way.”
This could be a worthwhile experiment.
But I suspect the majority of wealth inheriting people have enough experience with the closest to an actual meritocracy in the USA, competitive sports, to realize they are not that special in “bootstrapping ability”.or ability to acquire wealth on their own.
Hence they prefer to remain “born at third base” via an inheritance and avoid taking a chance to possibly strike out with an actual at bat.
Well we would too, probably, if we were them. As others have said the real problem is the false belief in a meritocracy that doesn’t really exist. Perhaps some truth will set us free from social arrangements that are harmful to everyone in the long run.
I don’t know if there is a widely held belief that the USA is a meritocracy.
Observe UC Berkeley economist Brad DeLong, in a leaked email, pleading for special treatment for a job for his son at the Democrat’s Center for American Progress.
People may mention the USA meritocracy, but then attempt to game the system, via going to the “right school” and currying favor with the “right people” or using influence to get a better job..
A poster child for this is none other than George W. Bush as President.
But I suspect many believe we do have a meritocracy in “open to all” sports such as American football, basketball and baseball.
In my view, in the rest of USA society, belief in a USA meritocracy is rather weak.
Going to the “right school” may be what they define as meritocratic (they got in didn’t they, and if they had gone to K-12 schools in the ghetto what would have been the chances, but never mind that). Using influence, they call networking, and it is also just what meritorious people do, what everyone should do, why aren’t you networking right now actually? ;) Actually getting jobs via connections spans class, but what job you can get that way differs.
This article calls it very well, especially by hitting hard on social circles seen as a means for economic advancement etc.
‘But I suspect the majority of wealth inheriting people have enough experience with the closest to an actual meritocracy in the USA, competitive sports, to realize they are not that special in “bootstrapping ability”.or ability to acquire wealth on their own.’
I have scores and scores of second cousins, all descended from a great-grandfather who came from Virginia after the Civil War. He brought no money with him, never owned his own home, and worked as a finish carpenter, despite having had a very good secondary education. He gave his descendants something. I cannot quite put my finger on it. They have almost all done quite well economically, despite varying degrees of education. Inheritance has sometimes played a role, as has marriage, but their success has mostly been about finding a profession, putting ones head down to work, and thrift.
We get far more important things from our ancestors than money.
interesting suggestions, 100% inheritance tax, outlaw private schools. It would help and would lead to solidarity and positive social reforms (public schools would be better if everyone had to go). Isn’t likely to happen though.
“The connections we draw between our investments (or lack thereof) and their outcomes convince us that if we’re poor or struggling in other ways, we have no one to blame but ourselves. We must not have tried hard enough or invested with enough savvy. And conversely, we take pride in our accomplishments as if they were generated by our efforts and investments alone. Despite our lack of control over the circumstances of our jobs and the value of our possessions, social mobility encourages us to think of ourselves as self-determining individuals.”
Meritocracy strikes again.
Reminds me of the studies that link a willingness to tolerate greater inequality with the perception of social mobility. The try-try-again myth of the American dream will consign us all to the gutters, and like crabs in a bucket, we will pull anyone back down should they get the silly idea that they can climb out. We are already nearing a condition of market saturation where the price of “selling out” is not much more than minimum wage.
Heavy taxation of wealth is required to achieve social justice and reduce inequality. Inheritances need to be taxed at a high rate too so that we limit the population of rent seekers.
Not everybody wants to be in charge – but that is the American/Western dream? Coming up through the ranks in the Navy, I often highlighted to the top brass the skill drain the DOD “up-or-out” promotion policy created. “Yes, but it is the law. What can ya do?” was a frequent rejoinder. Every bootcamp initiate is supposed to be preparing to be the next Chief of Naval Operations. If you do not promote within a specified window, you are cast adrift to float back to the civilian world (in a great many cases that translates into Defense Contractor employee). The ideal of upward mobility does indeed blind us to the ambitions of most people who just want to be in a decent job that pays for a stress-free life that enables competent application of one’s skills. And as the article highlights, it too often causes us to overlook the larger problem of exploitation.
And the “level playing field” metaphor presumes one accepts the basic structure of competition.
I think we have, since the 1950s, instituted a meritocracy of sorts, though an imperfect one, and we’re not very satisfied with the results. It is far more likely today than seventy years ago for someone with little behind them but brainpower to get into the best colleges and universities in the country. In the 1920s, Harvard freshman only had a 2 pt IQ premium when compared with a typical state university freshman. Today it is more like 20 pts. Smart people from the hinterlands are far more likely to end up at an Ivy league university today than they were before Sputnik.
There is a terrible danger in that. If our masters are such because of a social order, then they can possibly be deposed. If they’re such because they’re smarter than we are, then there is little hope of redemption for us. This was Richard Herrnstein’s argument, which he started making way back in the late ’60s or early ’70s.
As for ‘to succeed on your own merit, we need to do away the traditional mechanisms that socially stratify society due to wealth flowing down the generations’: do you not think your genes come from your parents?
Throughout human history, parents have tried to leave their children material benefits. Many continue working in part for that reason. If you want less wealth, and less work, then by all means prevent them from doing this. I don’t think ‘equal opportunity poverty’ makes for a very good political slogan, however.
It has always been the attitude of the upper crust that they are genetically superior and therefore naturally deserve their wealth and privilege. This is philosophically unsound and scientifically baseless.
We could, apparently, eliminate half the wealth in the world and only eight people would lose out, if it was done right. And all the work done to produce it could be dispensed with too.
Perhaps, if we all worked together instead of against each other, we could come up with a more sensible arrangement. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to retire early, confident that your children will get along fine no matter what, because society has been arranged to make it so.
Humans are competitive by nature (sneak a peak at our 2 party dynamics). If you eliminate worker competition you risk severe disinterest and a severe drop in productivity (which is what was indeed the downfall of communism). So eliminating competition cannot be an objective.
Why can’t we have our cake and eat it too? Maintain healthy competition between citizens, while capping the victors’ take from the losers through regulation?
Arguments from nature rarely work with humans, we are artificial. Competition has its place, mainly on the sports field. If you want to do anything big you get help.
Humans are cooperative by nature. In team sports the competition during a game is not within the team.
It takes a rat to win the rat race. :)
The current idea of meritocracy as a means of organizing a fair and ethical society is ignorant and absurd. Which explains how Michael Dunlop Young coined the word ”meritocracy,” first used in his biting futuristic satire, ”The Rise of the Meritocracy” (1958).
That meatheads would use the term as anything other than disparagement of a transparently self-serving agenda very similar to that other idiotic and dangerous malapropism ‘Social Darwinism” which is neither social or Darwinism, but appeals to the juvenile enthusiasms of self appointed Randian geniuses.
I have found in posing the question to these dolts: “why shouldn’t the goal of an ethical society be to ensure that that the teacher, the short-order cook, disabled or aged enjoy a secure and productive life within their families, their communities and the society at large? is met with blank stares and mumbling about competition.
They cannot envision any social order without a critical mass of losers, relentless competition, fear of social and economic destruction that serves mainly to preserve the power of the elite to determine life and death little different than the feudal lords held over their serfs.
In what universe can such people be considered deserving of privilege?
It matters little that some individuals will excel at football or brain surgery; that is another matter entirely and is a function of genetics, training, proclivities or a genuine need for high competence in tasks that pose great risk to others, such as piloting large aircraft.
But it’s not those people who are promoting these idiotic ideas.
Policing comes to mind as a field where a rigorous and unforgiving standard should be applied to those wielding firearms under color of law. Strangely, it’s not.
Accumulating obscene amounts of money and using it to usurp popular sovereignty and exercise illegitimate influence over the state is more disqualifying than admirable and should be prohibited in the interests of the general welfare.
Well, it’s a good start anyway.