Appiah's Misplaced Critique of Meritocracy

Alternative working title: Appiah is a bad writer and he should feel bad.

Warning: There be many words ahead.

It took several false starts before I came up with a good way to write about Kwame Anthony Appiah's discussion of meritocracy in The Lies That Bind. After mulling it over for an extended period of time I've come to the conclusion that it's simply a bad piece of writing. Appiah buries the lede and, when you finally get to his primary concern, it turns out that it's not really related to meritocracy at all. Along the way commits another fairly major sin, sliding between different sense of "meritocracy" as necessary to make his argument without acknowledging that he's doing so. Most importantly, he never proposes a superior alternative to meritocracy, possibly because to do so would make many of his criticisms moot.

"I.Q. + effort = merit" vs. "meritocracy of talent"

Appiah kicks off the discussion by citing Michael Young's characterization of meritocracy as "I.Q. + effort = merit" (p. 171), followed immediately by another Young quote:

Today we frankly recognize that democracy can be no more than an aspiration, and have rule not so much by the people as by the cleverest people; not an aristrocracy of birth, not a plutocracy of wealth, but a true meritocracy of talent. (p. 171)

The implication is that the latter quote is an elaboration of the former, which to me didn't feel quite right, since "I.Q. + effort = merit" isn't at all the same thing as a "meritocracy of talent". "merit" in the first formulation seems to refer to something intrinsic to the individual, some form of moral dessert. The references to "cleverest" and "talent" in the second, on the other hand, suggest a functional evaluation i.e. rule by the most capable.

The mismatch was notable enough that I checked the associated end notes (41 and 42, p. 242). "I.Q. + effort" comes from a paper Young published in 1998, while the longer quote comes from The Rise of Meritocracy, written by Young 40 years earlier in 1998. I won't go so far as to accuse him of academic malpractice, but Appiah's juxtaposition of two quotes written 40 years apart is certainly sketchy. In any case, there's no reason to think that Young was referring to the same concept in both quotes.

And now let's consider the formulation "I.Q. + effort = merit" as a defintion of "meritocracy". I can't recall ever running across a similar definition in any other context; it certainly doesn't come anywhere close to contemporary definitions. As far as I can tell the "I.Q." formulation is idiosyncratic to Young, a point to which I will return later.

Careers Open to Talents

Appiah next references the concept of "careers open to talents" (p. 172), the idea that an individual's pursuit of education or career should not be limited by accidents of "birth or fortune" (p. 172). This definition, at least, closely tracks the various dictionary definitions that turn up via Google and, I will hazard, is probably what most people have in mind when the term "meritocracy" is mentioned. So far, so good.

However, he immediately muddies the water by bringing in the concept of "unfair advantage":

As Michael Young recognized, however, this ideal was bound to conflict with a force in human life as inevitable and as compelling as the idea that some individuals are more deserving thnt others, namely, the desire of families to pass on advantages to their children. As he said in The Rise of Meritocracy, "Nearly all parents are going to try to gain unfair advantages for their offspring." (p. 172)

So... this is one example where it would really do Appiah's argument some good to suggest an alternative to meritocracy. Even if you buy the concept of "unfair advantage" (more on that in a minute), there's no reason to think that it's a pathology unique to meritocracy. Surely the hereditary aristocracy, which he discusses in the preceeding section of the book, conferred a great deal of "unfair advantage" on their offspring. The same could be said of nepotism, another time-honored practice for doling out careers. In fact, the tendency of parents to seek advantage for their children seems to be totally independent of the means by which jobs are allocated. If anything, meritocracy represents an improvement over both hereditary transmission and nepotism in this regard as it reduces the direct impact a parent can have over their offspring's success.

And what of the notion of "unfair advantage"? Here, Appiah turns to Richard V. Reeves' Dream Hoarders, apparently unaware that this work is rife with arbitrary distinctions. Here's a snippet from a friendly venue, Crooked Timber, in their review of the book:

One disappointment is that [Reeves] doesn't give more guidance about exactly what to do individually, given with the unease that they ought to feel. Should they not contribute to 529s? Not help their children with their homework? Not give their children piano lessons? Reeves quotes me and Swift to the effect that parents should not aim to give their children a competitive advantage relative to others and thinks we go too far. But he also quotes Charles Murray, with whose Coming Apart Reeves's book has some parallels, as saying that "I am not suggesting that [upper-middle class families] should sacrifice their self interest" to which he responds "I am suggesting that we should, just a little". But how, exactly, he doesn't say.

And a decidedly more cutting take from The New Republic:

At first glance, it's awfully hard to see a distinction between Reeves's approved "human capital formation" and his disallowed "opportunity hoarding." After all, in both cases, wealthy parents are leveraging their position to give their children a head start over their peers. Reeves has an answer for this-sort of. He concludes that "opportunity hoarding" only takes place when the opportunity in question is valuable and scarce, and the hoarding itself is "anticompetitive." He discerns a difference between "parental behavior that merely helps your own children and the kind that is 'detrimental' to others."

Unfortunately, this carefully-parsed dividing line is delicate to the point of collapse. What is, for instance, the most likely result of a cello lesson: artistic enrichment, or a bullet point on a resume? Unless those lessons turn into a lifelong passion or a performance career, their main effect is surely to grant children an edge over rival applicants in the race for academic recognition. The line blurs the other way too: Presumably most parents angling for a legacy admission to an Ivy believe their children stand to grow personally from the experience.

Charitably, I think we can say that there might be a kernel of truth to the concept of "unfair advantage", but a lot of work is needed before it can bear the weight of an argument.

Economic Rewards

Here I'd like to stop and point out just how much wrong Appiah has managed to cram into 3 short pages (pp. 171 - 173). And he's not done yet! On p. 172 he slips in yet another sense of "meritocracy" without missing a beat:

There is nothing wrong with cherishing our children. But a decent society governed by the ideal of merit would have to limit the extent to which this natural impulse permitted people to undermine that ideal. If the economic rewards of social life depended not just on your individual talent and effort but also on the financial and social inputs of your parents, you would no longer be living by the formula that "I.Q. + effort = merit". (pp. 172 - 173)

Gods, where to even start? Here, I'll just make a list:

• New definition of "meritocracy": Allocation of economic awards according to talents. This definition, at least, has the benefit of aligning most closely with dictionary definitions of the term. I still think it's a toss-up whether most people are referring to this sense of the term or "offices open to talents" when they say "meritocracy".
  
• It's trivially true that the "economic rewards of social life" depend on the "financial and social inputs of your parents". The mere act of being raised in a decent, middle-class household gives you a competative advantage over someone who was regularly beaten as a child. Even orphans, people who have never known their parents, are affected by their parents (lack of) financial and social inputs.
  
• There's that weird formulation, "I.Q. + effort = meritocracy", again.
  

Now, lest I be accused of myopia, I do see the bigger point that Appiah appears to be arguing: Allowing parents to spend their resources giving their children a leg up undermines the notion of meritocracy. The truth of that statement really depends on how you define "meritocracy". If you treat "merit" as some sort of innate attribute, as Appiah does via the "I.Q." formulation, then yes, it could be the case. However, I've already argued that "I.Q. + effort = merit" doesn't track current usage of the term "meritoracy", which makes it something of a red herring.

Definitions of "meritocracy" more in line with contemporary usage, which tend to focus on ability, are not materially undermined in most cases. A child that is exposed to high-quality education and lots of extracurriculars has the opportunity to develop their talents more fully. Provided that those talents actually are developed, meritocracy is not offended when the child ends up with a better job then their peers. About the only current, parent-related practice that I can think of which is genuinely offensive to meritocracy are "legacy admissions" to elite universities. By all means, kill them with fire.

Meritocracy as Intrinsic Worth

Appiah's main beef is not with meritocracy per se, but with the fact that, as practiced in America, it leads to social stratification:

"American meritocracy," the Yale law professor Danila Markovits, drawing on similar research, argues, "has thus become precisely what it was invented to combat: a mechanism for the dynastic transmission of wealth and privilege across generations." (p. 173)

This, ladies and gentlement and members of the jury, is why I characterize Appiah's critcisms as "misplaced". He has no objection to meritocracy as it is commonly practiced, going so far as to say:

If we want people to do difficult jobs that require talent, education, effort, training, and practice, we are going to need to be able to identify candidates with the right combination of talent and willingness to exert themselves, and provide them incentives to train and practice. (p. 178)

Rather, what he seems to have in mind is meritocracy as a system of bestowing dignity or intrinsic worth. Discussing Michael Young once again, he says

A system of class filtered by meritocracy would, in his view, still be a system of class: it would involve a hierarchy of social respect, granting dignity to those at the top, but denying respect and self-respect to those who did not inherit the talents and the capcity for effort that, combined with proper education, would give them access to the most highly reumunerated occupations. (p. 176)

This isn't really even a criticism of meritocracy but rather of class-based society which, in the present day, happens to be indexed by merit. And this is why I accuse him of "burying the lede"; why spend so much time railing against meritocracy when your actual complaint is against class?

So What are We to do About It?

So, if class is the problem, is Appiah going to call us to revolution? That would be kinda awesome but, sadly, no. Instead, he offers a vague and somewhat confused defense of... affirmative action?

Social origin is not, in itself, a permissible basis for excluding people from places in colleges. Nor is race, gnder, or religion. In a world poisoned by prejudices directed at certain identities, it may nevethless be a good idea to take these identities into account in designing the selectino process, if it contributes to ending those forms of prejudice. And, as long as we do so in a rational, morally permissible way, it may turn out that some working-class and black people, some women, some Muslims, will deserve, institutionally speaking, places that some otherwise equally qualified upper-class or white or Christian or male people will not.

That's it, you're just going to restate Regents v. Bakke? WTF, man?

Where the hell is Appiah's editor? This entire section of the book is an absolute horroshow. He spends all sorts of time talking about meritoracy when he really cares about class, and then his call to action has diddly-squat to do with either of them.

Wanna know something? I'm starting to think Appiah deliberately played this whole book safe. Consider:

• The logical conclusion to grievances against class would be a call for the dismantling of class. Instead he reiterates a common, left-ish talking point about taking identity into account when making hiring and admissions decisions.
  
• The book as a whole builds a good case that common concepts about identity are wrong, but then fails to actually do anything with that observation.
  
• He acknowleges gender as a highly-salient component of identity multiple times throughout the book and yet somehow fails to write a chapter on it. But he did find room to write about 'class' and 'country', despite the fact that neither of these topics are cited nearly as much in discussions of identity as gender. Maybe he couldn't think of a word for "gender" that starts with a 'c'?
  

These items are all glaringly obvious, especially to a seasoned writer such as Appiah. I have to assume that they represent deliberate decisions on his part to stay away from anything really controversial.