Credentialism and Meritocracy

Isn’t meritocracy all about being fair and just? Could meritocracy be a bad thing? Perhaps, argues Michael Sandel in his latest book, The Tyranny of Merit. There is much that is good about meritocracy, and Sandel acknowledges this up front; however his interest is exploring its dark side – in particular its ability to erode the basic functioning of democracy. “What’s become of the common good?” is the book’s subtitle. As a political philosopher, Sandel argues that the intense partisanship we see today in the U.S. and Western Europe has its roots in the rise of meritocratic ideas and ideals on both sides of the divide. In today’s post, I’ll quote several passages from his book.

 

To set the stage (p73): The tyranny of merit… consists in a cluster of attitudes and circumstances that, taken together, have made meritocracy toxic. First, under conditions of rampant inequality and stalled mobility, reiterating the message that we are responsible for our fate and deserve what we get erodes solidarity and demoralizes those left behind by globalization. Second, insisting that a college degree is the primary route to a respectable job and a decent life creates a credentialist prejudice that undermines the dignity of work and demeans those who have not been to college; and third, insisting that social and political problems are best solved by highly educated, value-neutral experts is a technocratic conceit that corrupts democracy and disempowers ordinary citizens.

 

I’ve previously written about the rise of credentialism. Chapter 4 of Sandel’s book addresses the link to meritocracy head-on: “Credentialism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice”. Obama and Trump, Kavanaugh and Biden, all get skewered as Sandel picks apart their public comments and responses. The underlying root for all this? Credentialism is so pervasive that it is unconsciously used as an all-purpose basis of judgment extending beyond academic certification and into the moral and political realm. Globalization, has exacerbated its tremendous rise, seemingly offering equal opportunities but not necessarily equal outcomes. The oxymoronic situation of increasing opportunity while increasing inequality in higher education, and thus credentialism, is a cornerstone of David Labaree’s book, A Perfect Mess. Sandel offers a similar critique when addressing economic reform embraced by both sides of the political divide.

 

The problem (p89): First, most Americans do not have a college degree… When meritocratic elites tie success and failure so closely to one’s ability to earn a college degree, they implicitly blame those without one for the harsh conditions they encounter in the global economy… Second, by telling workers that their inadequate education is to blame for their troubles, meritocrats moralize success and failure and unwittingly promote credentialism… The credentialist prejudice is a symptom of meritocratic hubris.

 

Isn’t getting more education a good thing? Yes, But. And on the shift towards higher credentialism in government and in leadership, Sandel has this to say about the technocratic shift (p90,99): Having well-educated people run the government is generally desirable provided they possess sound judgment and a sympathetic understanding of working people’s lives – what Aristotle called practical wisdom and civic virtue… But neither of these capacities is developed very well in most universities today, even those with the highest reputations. And recent historical experience suggests little correlation between the capacity for political judgment, which involves moral character as well as insight, and the ability to… win admission to elite universities. The notion that “the best and the brightest” are better at governing… is a myth born of meritocratic hubris.

 

So much for Plato’s philosopher-kings. Sandel provides multiple examples of the shift to technocratic language in public discourse – Obama provides a rich trove, but there are others. The evolving usage of the word “smart” was an example I had not noticed, but I will now be paying close attention to. Sandel notes that forty years ago (and more), this almost always referred to persons. But starting with George H. W. Bush, “smart” became the adjective of choice for cars, freeways, weapons, schools, and more. Clinton, Bush the Younger, and Obama, successively increased this trend. Now we hear “smart” growth, policy, investments, projects, reforms, regulations. In concert, the word “stupid” or “dumb” also increased in usage, as a contrast to “smart”. No longer is something “the right thing to do” but “the smart thing to do”.

 

To those of us in higher education (and he would include himself), Sandel has a warning: One of the casualties of meritocracy’s triumph may be the loss of broad public support for higher education. Once widely seen as an engine of opportunity, the university has become, at least for some, a symbol of credentialist privilege and meritocratic hubris. The rhetoric of rising, with its single-minded focus on education as the answer to inequality, is partly to blame. Building a politics around the idea that a college degree is a condition of dignified work and social esteem has a corrosive effect of democratic life.

 

The final statistic that Sandel provides in Chapter 4 is mind-boggling. It’s on global warming and climate change. The partisan gap is much greater among those with college degrees! What!? The gap is 30 percent for those with a high school education or less (57% of Republicans, 27% of Democrats, believe global warming is generally exaggerated). For those with a college degree, the gap is 59 percent (74% of Republicans, 15% of Democrats). So much for more education. Sandel writes (p111): It is a mistake to assume that the more people know about science, the more likely they are to converge on measure to combat climate change. The technocrat’s belief that, if only we could agree on the facts, we could then have a reasoned debate about policy, misconceives the project of political persuasion.

 

Can the tyranny of meritocracy be tempered, or perhaps reversed? After all, education in itself is not a bad thing. The problem is the ease of the slippery slope to associating success with one’s own hard work and merit, and then generalizing the principle to others. Even the have-nots have bought into the argument seeing themselves as the left-behind and not trusting the technocratic-biased government (in favor of market solutions in a global world) to look out for them, regardless of the rhetoric. As a cog in this meritocratic system who is well-credentialed, Sandel’s narrative is both bleak and humbling. I’m honestly at a loss of what to do, but hopefully there is some light at the end of the tunnel as I’m only halfway through his book.