Meritocracy: A Look at Our Society (Essay Sample)

Meritocracy: A Look at Our Society
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Meritocracy: A Look at Our Society
Meritocracy alludes to the idea that as long as an individual has talent and puts in the hard work, they will end up in higher social classes while those who lack in talent and slack off would most definitely relegate to the lowest cadres of society. It is inherently, a proposition that every new generation or individual has a clean slate to start off and succeed regardless of any previous underpinnings, and as such society’s inequality is only a derivative of individual merit. A number of studies and ideologies argue that our society is not the meritocracy alluded to above, and inequality is a result of gatekeepers placed on meritocracy.
The idea of starting off on a clean slate with boundless opportunity is mocked by Fredrick Engels. To Engels, the notion that the proletarian is free to act without constraint is a misnomer as the proletariat remains helpless and if left to himself could quite possibly, not live a single day. The bourgeoisie retains a monopoly over every means of existence in the entire sense of the word. The working man can only obtain what he needs from the bourgeoisie, a hard task, as the bourgeoisie’s monopoly is protected by the state’s power. It is inherently, a case of slavery, where upward progression is to an extent, a matter of life and death for the proletarian (Engels, 1844).
Engels goes on to say,
“It offers him (the proletarian), the means of living, but only for an equivalent", for his work. It even lets him have the appearance of acting from a free choice, of making a contract with free, unconstrained consent, as a responsible agent who has attained his majority.” (Engels, 1844).
The proletarian is enslaved by the need for basic necessities. He has no other choice other than accepting the conditions being offered, or he risks starving off and losing all basic needs. Engels adds that, if one proletarian chooses losing his basic needs rather than agreeing to the bourgeoisie’s “equitable” proposition, another proletarian is always available to fill their place in a never ending circle of repression where any means of upward mobility are curtailed (Engels, 1844). In this case, the working man has very little social capital, he has no bargaining power as every other working man risks losing his basic needs if he unites with the other in seeking better cause.
Education is a means to gain upward mobility and to showcase merit. Frederick Engels also argued that Education is limited for the proletarian. He opined that ignorance within the proletariat emanates from the bourgeoisie according them only as much education as meets the interests of the bourgeoisie which he termed as very little. At the time of Engels’ writing, education’s reach was restricted among the population. The rich profited by it, while conversely, the poor without the requisite knowledge to form up correct judgment bore the burden of exploitation and the little merit they gained was discarded to the bourgeoisie’s gain (Engels, 1844).
Working class families, due to the demoralizing effect of their station and treatment lead a life of harsh realities which spell doom for their offspring and their family life. With this, comes a perpetual succession of domestic quarrels and family conflicts which lead to dereliction of duties and further relegation of economic status (Engels, 1844).
Lareau looks at education as a tool for upward mobility. She opines that, middle class children are brought up in a manner that furnishes them with skills necessary to remain in the same class. Lareau explains that, families in the middle class raise their offspring differently from both working class and poor families and these differences also appear across racial lines (Lareau, 2002). When data on social mobility is examined in the United States, it is observed that the class or economic position of a parent has a significant effect on a child’s economic placement. This then means that there is limited social mobility in the United States (Lecture Notes: Economic Inequality in the U.S._CB, Week 3).
Lareau argued that, life is so stratified that individuals are inherently tied into the networks of people who are like them, and in some cases, these networks are hard to separate from cultural practices. These networks are avenues for reliance but they give individuals tunnel vision. An individual existing within circles of people in their class has limited opportunity for upward mobility. Most families are guided by a mantra of trusting those they know, and as such, this perpetuates class stratification. Such families have low cultural capital (Lareau, 2002).
Lareau went on to say that children of working class families had less education and are unfamiliar with what Lareau called “the rules of the game.” Such children are unaware of their available options and are much more likely to get frustrated by bureaucracy. They may not come to the realization that grades are important in high school or know that technical and community colleges hold less prestige than four-year colleges. They may also not know that they have a right to question decisions that impact them. On the flipside, these children demonstrated autonomy and problem-solving abilities that their peers in affluent families lacked (Lareau, 2002).
Social stratification refers to how people are ranked in society. Typically, the upper classes retain unfettered access to resources as the lower classes are put at a distinct disadvantage. Whichever form social stratification takes, it can manifest as the free rein to make rules, decisions, and establish basis for right or wrong. This power can also appear as the capacity to control the determination of opportunities, rights, and obligations of others (Lecture Notes: Economic Inequality in the U.S._CB. Week 3).
Jean Anyon elucidated on the causes of perpetuation of social stratification in his publication, Social class and the hidden curriculum of work. He mentioned that recent scholarship has put forward evidence that public schools in industrialized societies pass down different forms of curriculum knowledge and educational experience to students in different social classes (Anyon, 1980).
Quoting Bowles and Gintis, Anyon argued that students in different social classes get rewarded for behavior that corresponds to traits that are allegedly reward