Name: The meritocracy myth
ISBN: 9780742561687

The meritocracy myth

"The Meritocracy Myth challenges the widely held American belief in meritocracy_that people get out of the system what they put into it based on individual merit. Fully revised and updated throughout, the second edition includes compelling new case studies, such as the impact of social and cultural capital in the cases of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and new material on current topics such as the impact of the financial and credit crisis, intergenerational mobility, and the impact of racism and sexism. The Meritocracy Myth examines talent, attitude, work ethic, and character as elements of merit and evaluates the effect of non-merit factors such as social status, race, heritage, and wealth on meritocracy. A compelling book on an often-overlooked topic, the first edition was highly regarded and proved a useful examination of this classic American ideal"

What Hacker News says

disabledMar 2021

Yeah, the algorithms are meant to keep you online more, and are not there to give you good content, as in entertainment, let alone things that you need to know. It is ironic, given how much data is hoarded about us.

In the article meritocracy is mentioned. Meritocracy is a joke in America. People at the top basically have it rigged for their kids, even worse than what aristocracy brought (which offered a leisurely life).

The Meritocracy Myth by Yale Law Professor Stephen McNamee is a good read regarding this. It is shocking, as in the statistics.

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uchiMar 2013

It's really sort of an interesting debacle. There's opportunities out there for both privileged and underprivileged families but often times the underprivileged are left completely oblivious while the privileged take full advantage. When you're rich, you're not just monetarily wealthy. You gain a lot of social and cultural capital that helps you maintain your wealth and assets, and that's something that frankly many poor people just don't get the opportunity to learn about. Believe it or not, most wealthy people who have been wealthy for a while are very good at knowing what helps them remain wealthy. In contrast, many underprivileged families don't know much about saving money at all. There's a great book that goes into a lot of detail about this. It's called the Meritocracy Myth. http://www.amazon.com/Meritocracy-Myth-Stephen-J-McNamee/dp/...

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disabledMay 2021

It is basically a status and class indicator in American society, particularly for the upper middle class and the upper class.

If you read "The Meritocracy Myth" by Yale University law professor Stephen McNamee, you will understand the game being played here quite well. There are upper class Americans in particular who basically work extremely long hours (80-105 hour work weeks) to game the system, with no net productivity gains whatsoever compared to the middle and upper middle class who typically work 40-60 hour work weeks at maximum. In fact, the productivity gains generally wane off at about 32 hours per week, and we really do not need longer work hours in modern society, unless it is for the upper class to "protect" their status. Just like sleep is critical, rest is critical too, for recharging, so you can do a good job at work. The health effects of working extremely long hours, even if it affords you things and experiences others do not have, are just simply not worth it.

My father, who grew up as a very indignant American youth, who literally paid for all of his clothes starting by age 12, knew how to play this game very well. He was able to transcend the poor, working, and middle classes, and was comfortably in the upper middle class as senior level management, in the private sector, in finance, as a certified public accountant by training, by the time I was born. At my grandmother's funeral (his mother's funeral) people wished they were industrious as he was in his youth! The sad part about it is he died before he turned 60, and before his mother. It comes at a huge price.

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D9uDec 2013

Meritocracy?

What a load of garbage!

    http://www.ncsociology.org/sociationtoday/v21/merit.htm

    "According to the ideology of the American Dream, America is the land of limitless opportunity in which individuals can go as far as their own merit takes them. According to this ideology, you get out of the system what you put into it. Getting ahead is ostensibly based on individual merit, which is generally viewed as a combination of factors including innate abilities, working hard, having the right attitude, and having high moral character and integrity. Americans not only tend to think that is how the system should work, but most Americans also think that is how the system does work (Huber and Form 1973, Kluegel and Smith 1986, Ladd 1994).

    In our book The Meritocracy Myth (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), we challenge the validity of these commonly held assertions, by arguing that there is a gap between how people think the system works and how the system actually does work. We refer to this gap as “the meritocracy myth,” or the myth that the system distributes resources—especially wealth and income—according to the merit of individuals. We challenge this assertion in two ways. First, we suggest that while merit does indeed affect who ends up with what, the impact of merit on economic outcomes is vastly overestimated by the ideology of the American Dream. Second, we identify a variety of nonmerit factors that suppress, neutralize, or even negate the effects of merit and create barriers to individual mobility. We summarize these arguments below. First, however, we take a brief look at what is at stake. That is, what is up for grabs in the race to get ahead?"

http://www.law.umn.edu/lawreview/v85n2.htm

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sbierwagenDec 2013

Might want to invest in some linebreaks. (fold --spaces --width 60)

  According to the ideology of the American Dream, America is 
  the land of limitless opportunity in which individuals can 
  go as far as their own merit takes them. According to this 
  ideology, you get out of the system what you put into it. 
  Getting ahead is ostensibly based on individual merit, 
  which is generally viewed as a combination of factors 
  including innate abilities, working hard, having the right 
  attitude, and having high moral character and integrity. 
  Americans not only tend to think that is how the system 
  should work, but most Americans also think that is how the 
  system does work (Huber and Form 1973, Kluegel and Smith 
  1986, Ladd 1994).

  In our book The Meritocracy Myth (Rowman & Littlefield, 
  2004), we challenge the validity of these commonly held 
  assertions, by arguing that there is a gap between how 
  people think the system works and how the system actually 
  does work. We refer to this gap as “the meritocracy 
  myth,” or the myth that the system distributes 
  resources—especially wealth and income—according to the 
  merit of individuals. We challenge this assertion in two 
  ways. First, we suggest that while merit does indeed affect 
  who ends up with what, the impact of merit on economic 
  outcomes is vastly overestimated by the ideology of the 
  American Dream. Second, we identify a variety of nonmerit 
  factors that suppress, neutralize, or even negate the 
  effects of merit and create barriers to individual 
  mobility. We summarize these arguments below. First, 
  however, we take a brief look at what is at stake. That is, 
  what is up for grabs in the race to get ahead?

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