With growing concerns about the inequality suffered in the United States, it is inevitable that many now believe the American Dream is limited to only those who live under ideal sociological conditions. If this is just a disillusionment that has pervaded the lives of citizens and immigrants alike, then why is it that so many still choose to take a chance at significantly improving their economic standings? Are we rewarded for our merit when we choose to take on opportunities given to us? Are opportunities even divided equally? The obvious answer is no, merit is not rewarded equally but the American Dream still lives on.
We may feel the need to define America as a meritocracy in order to rightfully deem it the land of opportunity. However, the implications of the word meritocracy is a problem in itself. What constitutes merit? Is merit solely the person left when all of his surroundings are taken away? Or do all the factors of human capital make up whom a person truly is?
The first definition of merit involves removing a person from his upbringing, contacts, environment, and any other factor that determines his social standing. The issue with this definition of merit is that this disconnection is impossible. Who is to determine where the real person ends and society begins? It is difficult to separate certain values and ideals a person has from those he has inherited from his surroundings.
Personally, I refuse to accept that my Bengali upbringing is the reason I am a good student today. It is true that my culture prizes education and that I have learned the importance of discipline from my parents but I believe that most of my success in school has been my own. I recognize where to draw the line between my heritage and me but I expect neither government nor society to draw it in the same place as I do.
This problem is clearly seen in the implicit affirmative action policies in Texas. Although the top 10% rule of Texas secondary education was meant to draw students from varying socioeconomics backgrounds, it is difficult to say whether this is a fair decision. Does House Bill 588 truly just negate the disadvantages of some students and allow them access to universities from an even playing field? Students benefitting from this law can be overcompensated for to the point where they will not survive in the rigorous environments of the colleges in which they are accepted. The inability to distinguish personal merit from traits received through society should be enough to waive the claim that meritocracy could ever be determined under this definition.
The difficulty of attempting to remove traits a person acquired from his surroundings is resolved in the second definition of merit by simply including everything that may have shaped a person’s ability to achieve success. This construction of the word implies that the best way to fuel a meritocracy is to fuel all the factors that go into creating this merit. The popular definition of meritocracy holds that equal opportunity prevails, an ideal that is simply not viable under this interpretation of merit. Differences in economic, social, and cultural capital will prevent equality of opportunity from ever existing and this difference will be reflected in differences in merit.
Unequal Childhoods by Annette Lareau provides a clear illustration of how even seemingly small differences in capital can be magnified into more profound discrepancies. Wendy Driver, a working class girl, reads at a level a full three years below her grade. Although she participates in more extracurricular activities than other children in her social class, she still lacks the cultural capital to conquer her learning disability. Her mother works hard to help her daughter overcome her problems and does whatever is suggested by Wendy’s teachers. Yet her daughter continues to do poorly. Ms. Driver does not have an independent understanding of her daughter’s problem, preventing her from taking an initiative to finding a solution.
Conversely, Stacey Marshall’s mother took matters into her own hands when Stacey missed the cutoff to be admitted into the gifted and talented program at her school. She gathered information and advice from school officials and other parents and had her daughter retested and admitted into the program. In both cases, the devotion of the mothers is clear but differences in ability make significant differences in the lives of the children.
When small discrepancies result in diverse outcomes, it is inevitable that considerable disparities in human capital make it difficult to allow true potential to come out.
What should be taken from the illegitimacy of these two definitions of merit is not that the U.S. fails at being a true meritocracy but that a true meritocracy can never exist. America may not be perfect in terms of preventing social and economic injustices but the global context of this country allows it to continue on being the land of opportunity.
The U.S. is the closest representation of a meritocracy that the world has ever seen. Pure meritocracy requires complete equality of opportunity but also needs to promote the individual, two tasks impossible to accomplish simultaneously. This requires drawing qualities from opposite ends of the spectrum, one in which socialism prevails and merit is less rewarded and another in which corruption and extreme injustices stifle talent and merit. The U.S. has been known to cultivate the idea of the American Dream by finding a necessary balance between the two extremes. This balance can be the only applicable definition of meritocracy.
Bangladesh, one of the most corrupted countries in the world, suffers from crime and inequality that has reached a level in which it is near impossible for talent to shine through. Even the politicians come into power through crime and bribery. Although the ulterior motives of political figures will always be questioned, American has managed to regulate society and capitalism enough to not allow the mask of corruption to stifle its citizens.
Although it seems Americans find it increasingly more difficult to move up a quintile in the economic ladder than Europeans, this is just a distortion of the facts. The incomes of Europeans tend to be much closer and therefore it would take a far smaller increase in income to move up in Europe than in America.
A comparison of income mobility in America and Sweden indicate that there is a very small window within which an income can increase in Sweden in comparison to America. Sweden like many social-democratic countries promotes equality through government programs, yet this hinders the individualism necessary for a true meritocracy.
Discrimination and disadvantages are not stories unique to American culture but ones that have always shaped human history. These social problems are neither acceptable nor necessary but must be taken into consideration for the delegitimization of the term meritocracy. However, with or without this obsolete term, it is evident that there is enough individualism as well as equality in the U.S. for the American Dream to persist.
References
“HB 588 House Committee Report.” 1997. Texas Legislature Database. Retrieved February 16, 2010 (http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/75R/analysis/html/HB00588H.htm).
Lareau, Annette. 2003. Unequal Childhoods: Class Race and Family Life. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California. University of California Press.
Nell, Guinevere. 2008. “Using Mobility Statistics to Describe the Condition of the American Dream” Critical Review. Retrieved February 17, 2010 (http://www.economicliberty.net/mobility_stats.htm).
