The Meritocratic Ideal: An Unfinished Promise

Meritocracy is one of the foundational narratives of modern liberal societies—an appealing ideal: in a world freed from hereditary privilege and caste systems, everyone could rise according to their merit, talents, efforts, and perseverance.

This ideal resonates deeply with the promises of the Enlightenment, individual emancipation, and democracy. The idea of individual merit, deeply rooted in the Western democratic imagination, rests on a dual promise: equality of opportunity and recognition of individual achievement. It aims to be both fair and efficient, rewarding the most capable while stimulating innovation and productivity.

But has this promise been fulfilled? And more importantly, is it just? In light of recent work by thinkers such as Michael Sandel, Daniel Markovits, Kathryn Paige Harden, and contemporary sociological and economic analyses, it becomes clear that meritocracy, far from being a neutral ideal, has become an ideology that justifies growing inequalities—a new form of aristocracy based not on blood, but on diplomas and genes.

Meritocracy as a Liberal Ideal: Between Emancipation and Legitimation

Historically, meritocracy is part of the liberal and democratic project of breaking with the feudal order and its hereditary privileges. It is rooted in the Enlightenment and the French Revolution: replacing the arbitrariness of birth-based hierarchies with a hierarchy based on the justice of merit. In this sense, it is profoundly liberal: it values the individual, autonomy, and personal responsibility.

In industrial and then post-industrial societies, this idea took shape through schools, competitive exams, elite institutions, and performance-based careers. This ideal helped legitimize the expansion of liberal democracy and meritocratic capitalism, especially after World War II.

In France, the republican school system enabled a degree of social mobility, particularly during the post-war economic boom known as the "Trente Glorieuses."

In this liberal conception, merit rests on three pillars:

• Equality of opportunity: everyone should start from the same conditions.

• Recognition of talent and effort: individual skills must be valued.

• Distributive justice: social and economic rewards should be proportional to demonstrated merit.

The Intrinsic and Empirical Limits of Meritocracy: The Illusion of Equal Opportunity

As meritocracy became institutionalized, its contradictions became more apparent. Recent research highlights several fundamental biases.

The Illusion of Equal Opportunity

One of meritocracy’s core assumptions is equality of opportunity. However, Kathryn Paige Harden, in her work on genetics and education summarized in The Genetic Lottery, shows that this equality is largely illusory. Genetic inheritance (our predispositions influencing cognitive abilities, temperament, mental health), socio-economic conditions, and cultural and social capital heavily shape individual trajectories. The idea that everyone competes on a level playing field is a fiction.

Acknowledging the influence of genes does not mean surrendering to biological determinism, but recognizing that merit is never purely individual. It is always the product of context, environment, and chance. As Harden writes, “we don’t choose our genetic cards, but society chooses how to play them.”

Moreover, as Bourdieu established, schools reproduce social inequalities more than they correct them. Children from upper classes benefit from educational, cultural, and emotional capital that allows them to succeed in a system that values precisely those traits. Academic merit often masks invisible socio-cultural advantages. This aligns with Daniel Markovits’s argument in The Meritocracy Trap, which shows that meritocratic elites are not only advantaged by their talents but also by an educational and economic system tailored to them.

• The Role of Luck : Many scholars, including David Labaree, emphasize the weight of luck: being born into a privileged family, good health, timely encounters, etc. These factors are beyond individual control. Yet in a strict meritocratic logic, they are ignored, leading winners to claim undue credit for their success.

• The Moral Tyranny of Success :  Michael Sandel denounces the “tyranny of merit”: by glorifying the system’s winners, meritocracy fosters toxic pride and humiliates the losers, seen as solely responsible for their failure. By claiming to reward only merit, it ends up legitimizing inequalities as natural, even just. This contempt is especially violent because it is moral: if you fail, it’s because you didn’t try hard enough. Meritocracy becomes a guilt-inducing ideology that hides social determinisms and naturalizes inequality. It turns success into virtue and failure into fault. This elite sense of superiority fuels populist resentment.

• A New Aristocracy : In practice, economic meritocracy tends to solidify into a new aristocracy, as shown by the rising share of inherited wealth. Elites reproduce themselves, locking access to dominant positions. Economic, educational, and social capital are transmitted, contradicting the ideal of openness.

Meritocracy and Worsening Inequality

Rather than correcting inequalities, meritocracy tends to reinforce them. It creates a new aristocracy of the credentialed, the high performers, the “winners.”

• Justification of Privilege: Economic elites sincerely believe they deserve their position, legitimizing extreme inequalities. The system becomes an “inequality machine,” reinforced by wealth concentration.

• Social Polarization: Daniel Markovits shows how meritocratic logic polarizes society: on one side, a hyper-performing, overworked elite; on the other, a disrespected and downwardly mobile majority. This polarization fuels distrust in institutions and political resentment. As Markovits notes, this elite is cut off from the rest of society. It lives in social, cultural, and geographic bubbles and develops a form of contempt for the system’s “losers.”

• Meritocracy in Education, a False Promise : Schools, by promoting a biased notion of merit, sustain illusions. What we see is a “moral makeup” of academic merit, where supposedly objective evaluation systems are often biased, and elite pathways reproduce social hierarchies.

Psychological Toll

Belief in a perfect meritocracy increases the distress of the “losers,” who feel guilty, and the stress of the “winners,” under constant pressure. Markovits highlights the psychological costs of this intense competition. In a system where personal worth is equated with performance, winners are trapped in a cycle of self-justification: they must constantly prove they deserve their place. This leads to:

• Perpetual hyper-competition at work, driven by rankings and “top performer” culture.
• Pathological perfectionism, causing chronic anxiety. 
• Constant fear of failure, experienced as moral failure. Winners often internalize the idea that their human value depends on their economic utility. 

This results in:

• Self-exploitation (excessive work hours, no personal life).
• Frequent burnout in prestigious professions (finance, consulting, tech, medicine, law, politics).
• Loss of meaning: when career becomes an end in itself, personal fulfillment erodes.

Numerous studies show that today’s educational and economic elites suffer from high levels of depression, anxiety disorders, sleep issues, and addictions (alcohol, anxiolytics, stimulants).

The paradox is cruel: the system’s winners, supposed to embody the merit ideal, are among the most psychologically vulnerable

Reconciling Merit and Social Justice

Should we abandon the meritocratic ideal? Not necessarily. But it must be profoundly rethought. Several paths emerge in current debates:

• Redefine merit, acknowledge luck and chance, and foster a culture of humility: Merit cannot be defined solely by individual performance. It must include recognition of context, support received, and the role of chance. Success is often the result of a favorable chain of events. Integrating this dimension into our conception of merit would foster greater humility and solidarity. As Sandel suggests, cultivating an ethic of gratitude and humility in the face of success could reduce elite arrogance and restore social cohesion.

• Strengthen real equality of opportunity and promote fairer distributive justice: For merit to be meaningful, everyone must have the means to develop it. Beyond schools, we must act on living conditions: universal access to healthcare, early childhood support, quality education, and combating residential segregation. As economist Thomas Piketty proposes, more progressive taxation and inheritance caps could offset initial inequalities and foster genuine equity.

• Value other forms of merit: Today’s meritocracy mainly values cognitive and academic skills. We must move beyond this narrow conception focused on academic or financial success and broaden it to include other dimensions: contribution to the common good, caregiving, civic engagement, creativity, resilience. Essential yet underpaid professions deserve recognition and valorization.

Merit must once again become a lever for emancipation, not a machine for exclusion. This requires a profound reform of our institutions, economic practices, and moral culture. The goal is not to deny merit, but to place it within a more just ethical and political framework.

That is the path to reconciling individual merit and social justice.

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References

Michael Sandel, The Tyranny of Merit

Daniel Markovits, The Meritocracy Trap

Kathryn Paige Harden, The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality 

Pierre Bourdieu, La reproduction, Les Héritiers.

Thomas Piketty, Capital et idéologie