The Myth of Meritocracy: A Tale of Two Children
Meritocracy Isn’t Working for Anyone
Here’s an uncomfortable truth: meritocracy isn’t just failing the poor and middle class. It’s also trapping the wealthy in a relentless cycle of competition and pressure. The system we’ve built today doesn’t serve anyone well in the long run.
This blog post is inspired by Daniel Markovits’s book The Meritocracy Trap. I believe in the value of meritocracy—but only within a fair system. Let’s explore how meritocracy has become a machine of exclusion and stress, how it harms both the rich and the poor, and, most importantly, how we can make the system fairer for everyone. To bring Professor Markovits’s insights to life, I thought it would be powerful to contextualise them in a story:
A Story of Two Paths
Let’s imagine two children, Alex and Sam. Both are bright, curious, and full of potential. They live in the same city but in very different neighbourhoods.
Alex’s parents are wealthy professionals. They live in a spacious home, and Alex attends one of the country’s top private schools. Sam’s parents, on the other hand, are working-class. They juggle multiple jobs just to make ends meet, and Sam goes to the local state school.
At first glance, the world promises Alex and Sam the same opportunities. This is the story meritocracy tells us: work hard, and you will succeed. But as we follow their journeys, we’ll see how structural inequality shapes their paths—and how even the wealthy aren’t truly free from the pressures of this broken system.
The Starting Line: Unequal from Birth
Before either child sets foot in a classroom, their circumstances are already worlds apart. Research shows that children born into wealthier families are far more likely to grow up in stable, two-parent households. Professor Daniel Markovits highlights this stark reality:
60% of children born to mothers without a secondary school education are raised in single-parent households.
In contrast, only 5% of children born to mothers with postgraduate degrees experience the same.
Alex, born to well-educated parents, grows up with stability and support that give him a significant head start. Meanwhile, Sam grows up in a single-parent home where resources are stretched thin.
Education: The Power of Resources
When Alex enters school, his parents invest heavily in his education:
Alex attends a private school that spends $60,000 per pupil per year on education. This investment ensures customised learning plans, low student-to-teacher ratios, and specialised programmes.
Sam attends a state school where funding is limited, with only $8,000 spent per pupil annually. Teachers are overburdened, and resources are scarce.
The result? By the time they sit their exams, Alex’s scores will almost certainly surpass those of his middle-class peers and widen the gap even further over children like Sam.
The meritocratic promise is already broken. Alex’s achievements aren’t simply a result of hard work or talent; they’re the outcome of enormous investments that Sam’s family could never afford.
Meritocracy and the Pressure on the Rich
At this point, you might think: Well, at least the system works for the rich. But here’s the twist: even Alex isn’t free in this meritocratic system.
The competition for places at elite universities has become so intense that children like Alex are under unrelenting pressure to succeed. A single mistake—failing a class, underperforming one year—could cost him his place.
For example:
In the 1990s, the University of Chicago admitted 70% of applicants.
Today, it admits only 6.5%.
Alex trains relentlessly from an early age. His privilege comes at a cost: stress, perfectionism, and a life defined by achievement. Meritocracy enslaves the rich even as it rewards them.
The Consequences for Society
This inequality doesn’t just harm children like Sam—it reshapes our entire labour market and economy:
Industries like finance and consulting thrive on competition. They reward those who win the “superiority game”—outperforming others in cutthroat environments.
Meanwhile, jobs that once provided middle-class stability, like taxi driving, have been transformed.
Take Uber, for example. Highly skilled professionals with specialised education design the technology that strips the skill out of driving. Drivers are reduced to following app instructions for low pay, with no opportunities for advancement. For families like Sam’s, there’s no way to rise through the Uber hierarchy or send their children to the schools attended by the elite managers who designed the system.
Professor Markovits makes a key distinction between an excellent education system and a superior one:
Excellence is about reaching a threshold—being good at something meaningful. If someone is better, that doesn’t make you not excellent. For example, being an excellent doctor or teacher.
Superiority, on the other hand, is about rankings. It’s about being better than others, regardless of whether the work itself has value.
Our education system has abandoned excellence in favour of superiority. This is why Ivy League universities produce so many graduates who go into finance and consulting. These fields are about winning competitive games, not necessarily creating social value. Now, hold on, Professor - as someone who works in Financial Services, I could argue that we do bring value to society. But on the whole, I understand Professor Markovits’s point here, and I agree with it to some extent.
The snowball effect is devastating:
The wealthy invest in their children’s education.
Those children dominate the elite workforce.
The system becomes even harder for working-class families to penetrate.
A Fairer System?
If we want a society where both Alex and Sam can thrive, we need to rethink meritocracy. Professor Markovits offers some solutions:
Pressure Elite Schools to Expand Access: Institutions like the Ivy League should double their enrolments and admit more economically diverse students. Tie their tax exemptions to progress in this area.
Invest in Public Education: State schools need the funding to provide opportunities that match those of private schools—smaller class sizes, better resources, and specialised programmes.
Restructure the Labour Market: Encourage mid-skilled jobs and reform tax policies that favour elite workers over middle- and working-class workers.
Rethink Meritocracy
