Penny Thoughts: What has Happened to American Meritocracy

Those of us who were raised in America immediately after World War II thrived in an entirely different cultural and societal climate than we live in today. We said the Pledge of Allegiance and the Lord’s Prayer every morning in school. Our parents worked and worked hard. We played outside until we were called for lunch or dinner by our mothers. And we did not worry about wearing some ridiculous helmets to ride our bikes. If we got into “trouble” at school, we feared the discipline of our parents more than what the school might mete out. We went to church on Sunday and we respected and loved our police.

All this was supported by our measures for success, which were directly tied to our ability to work hard and stay focused on our goals. While not specifically delineated, it was referred to as “American Meritocracy” and it served us rather well. The formula: work hard and you will achieve.

For whatever the myriad of reasons, little of that remains today. We have allowed a climate of ease and comfort to permeate our Nation. Our great economic engine based on capitalism built a mighty empire. With that economy, technology advanced with break-neck speed. Reflect, if you will, on the technological changes that have taken placed merely in the past half century. From typewriters to keyboards with our computers. And computers themselves! From black and white televisions to color televisions with antennae. From television antennae to cable to streaming television. From vinyl LP’s to MP-3’s.

The technology has been so complete and so massive that an electronics supply chain, Radio Shack, had survived from its inception in 1921 until it filed for bankruptcy in 2015. At its peak in 1982, there were more than 4,300 corporate stores nationwide and more than 2,000 independently owned local franchises. Today, there are a scant 72 stores nationwide.  Everything that Radio Shack had carried in its stores is now available in our individual “smart phones”!  Let that sink in!

Anyone with a sense of progress in human history realizes this is quite mind boggling! One-half a century is merely a blip in the continuity of the human condition. But we have been transported in light speed fashion from typewriters to computers to a cell phone which allows us to individually communicate efficiently and effectively.

Take a moment to absorb that!

From my perspective, this evolution in technology is fantastic! I love technology and I do not take it for granted! For those born with all these technological amenities at their command, it is merely a matter of course. And my generation has largely failed to engender in them a sense of respect for it and a sincere appreciation of it.

We lived by an expression we heard our parents recite: “I don’t want my children to have it as tough as I did.” And in that utterance, we did not instill in our children that sense of determination and drive to succeed on their own. They were disciplined with “time out” penalties. They were taught that competition was demeaning and limited their growth. We gave them “participation” medals and ribbons and did not promote them to achieve or to fail through their own abilities. 

In short, we gave them a soft place to fall and they were not ever held to account for their ability to succeed or to fail in any kind of competition.

A casualty of this approach has been the loss of our sense of meritocracy, the phrase coined by British sociologist Michael Young in his book The Rise of the Meritocracy published in 1958.

The essential principles of American meritocracy were initially envisioned in Thomas Paine’s 1776 pamphlet, Common Sense. In it, he laid the founding principle upon which an entire American creed was based. It was in direct opposition to King George and other monarchs in Europe, and it emerged as the motivation for American success unhindered by the lack of “birth privilege” so fundamental to the hierarchical structures in the Old World.

In the seminal work, Democracy, Meritocracy and the Uses of Education (2013), Aundra Saa Meroe summed up meritocracy in the following fashion: “One’s fortune can be influenced by one’s abilities, talents and efforts in relation to the needs, desires and values of the larger economy and society”.

An abiding and indelible conviction in the practice of meritocracy as a bedrock principle of American freedom has been etched into the framework of American culture. And it became enmeshed with the concept of the American Dream, which J. L. Hochschild (1995) segmented as possessing the following traits: 1) individuals can succeed on the basis of their autonomous decisions and actions; 2) this success is based upon moral virtue; and 3) equal opportunity applies to everyone regardless of origin or social identity.

Again, the debilitating mantra of not wanting our children to have it “as tough” as we did divorces them from the foundational principles upon which our Nation was established and has succeeded. Dealing with failure has been minimized and accountability has become a foreign exercise.

The observations in this brief harangue can be argued, but when we limit our citizens of all ages from their abilities to succeed, we limit the growth and continuity of our whole Nation.

We need to forcefully and consistently recite the fact that in meritocratic America effort breeds success, success leads to satisfaction, and satisfaction is a fundamental precept of our American Dream.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of The West Alabama Watchman.