A Conversation Starter, by Shweta

"As the first child of working class, college-educated parents, an idea I grew up believing is that "meritocracy" exists, and that alone is the way to do well in life. The idea that if you work hard enough make yourself the "best" version of something, it may be possible to choose your destiny. The more I travel and move through life, the less I believe that.

The origin is ironic: the word "meritocracy" was coined by British sociologist Michael Young in 1958, in a dystopian novel, as a warning. He imagined a future where sorting people by merit created a smug ruling class fully justified in their dominance. He was horrified when the word became an aspiration. It was a critique from the start, and we built societies around it anyway.

The system rewards the successful with a morally comfortable story: I earned this, therefore I deserve it, therefore the system is just. That loop is what makes it so resistant to challenge. It doesn't feel like ideology to the people it's rewarding. Philosopher Michael Sandel calls this the tyranny of merit: meritocracy creates not just inequality but humiliation, because it tells those who don't make it they have no one to blame but themselves (at least old aristocracies didn't pretend the hierarchy was fair).

Whereas in reality, "geography" or "where you are born" is the most consequential lottery nobody talks about. Where you're born may be the single most consequential unchosen variable in a life; shaping your currency, passport, legal system, access to credit, and crucially, your ability to fail and recover. "Merit" as the world measures it is dramatically easier to produce with good schools, stable institutions, and a currency that holds value. Someone equally talented born elsewhere is playing a different game entirely. Meritocracy doesn't account for that. It just sees the outcome and calls it deserved.

For meritocracy to actually work, you'd need equal starting points, equal access to the tools that build merit, and judges with no bias. None of that exists.

The honest version of the idea: none of this means effort and skill are meaningless. The more honest framing might be: talent and hard work are necessary but nowhere near sufficient, and the gap between individual outcomes is filled mostly by things nobody chose. Geography, family, timing, which decade you were born in, what language you speak natively. Acknowledging that doesn't erase achievement. It just makes the story closer to reality."

Nile Seguin

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Mar 23, 2026

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I came here to participate in a discussion but I have no notes on this as I very much agree. :)

Jeanne

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Mar 23, 2026

Replying to: Nile Seguin

Well that's a first Nile ;) !!! Hahah!

Sas

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Mar 25, 2026

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I find what you say really thoughtful and insightful - thanks Shweta. Of all the -ocracies, I used to think meritocracy was a good one. When I worked in Silicon Valley, meritocracy was a selling point. It was supposed to be a place where brilliant minds could thrive without necessarily having connections. It seemed more like that than other worlds like banking or finance. But look where we are now - you could not get further from meritocracy than the broligarchy. I wonder if meritocracy itself is still a good thing, it is just that humans mess it up and therefore it never truly exists?

Chrissy Boylan

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Mar 25, 2026

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I love the synchronicity of this topic! I'm currently reading "The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias" by social psychologist Dolly Chugh. She talks about the myth of meritocracy through the lens of privilege in an early chapter by introducing the 'hard knock-life effect.' The effect suggests that our default human psychology is to fiercely protect our sense of self from the perception that our accomplishments were unearned -- e.g., by white privilege or other advantages. (By the way, though she doesn't qualify it as such, I'm assuming this 'human psychology' is 'Western human psychology" or even more specific, "US human psychology!" She then takes it to the systemic level by using Antiracist educator Debby Irving's metaphor of 'headwinds' and 'tailwinds' to refer to the invisible and systemic forces that can either act for or against various groups, which sound like the things you're describing -- the things over which we don't have control. Knowing that the origin came from a dystopian novel makes my reading all the more fascinating and textured. Thank you for sharing!

By the way, Chugh offers hope by noting that people often loosen their protective defenses and are able to see the inequity at the systemic level when approached with individual affirmation first...which was a primary reason I wanted to read the book in the first place. In this way, the nod to "good people" in her title is a red herring. Her point is that it's counterproductive to focus on being a "good person" because the identity psychology only makes us dig in. She recommends adopting a growth mindset that allows a much more realistic perspective, which is precisely what you argue for in your post. :)

Lani

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Mar 26, 2026

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Your post makes me wonder how each of us might map our own unchosen advantages, geography, timing, institutions, language, and then ask how those shaped the opportunities we think we ‘earned.’

When I sketch my own map, a few things stand out:
When I draw mine, it’s uncomfortably clear how much of my trajectory rests on things I didn’t select: a passport that opens doors, mentors who appeared at the right moment, and institutions that caught me when I stumbled.

None of these were things I chose. They were tailwinds.
I’d love to hear how others here have made sense of their own maps..

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