Yesterday I shared the story of how back in 2004 I almost losing my business overnight. That big blip made me realise that I had too many eggs in one basket when it came to both traffic and income.
At that time the basket that all my eggs were in was 'Google'.
I was reliant upon Google for most of my traffic and most of my income (by monetising purely through Google AdSense).
Over the next week, I want to suggest a number of ways I've tried to diversify my business since 2004, to build something that isn't quite so reliant upon any one thing.
My hope was and is to build a business that could survive any one source of traffic, income stream, type of content or trend disappearing.
Today I want to start with the most obvious area and one that was a big problem for me….
Rather than a single stream of traffic I've been trying to grow multiple streams.
Yesterdays story is the perfect example of why this is important. I was reliant upon Google for around 80% of my traffic so when that traffic all but disappeared – so did my income.
If I'm honest with myself I think I had become a little complacent about traffic in 2004.
Two years earlier I had worked hard to grow my readership. Every day I networked with other bloggers, submitted content to other blogs, engaged in forums on my topics, commented on other blogs, learned about SEO and much more. The result was growth in profile and traffic. All of the above also contributed to a growth in search engine rankings.
So in 2004, when I was getting decent traffic from Google and was making a decent income, rather than pushing to grow my blogs through every avenue available, I'd allowed myself to become reliant upon search traffic and stopped pushing as hard.
That traffic disappearing was a wake up call that I needed. I'm actually grateful for it because it started a sequence of events that led to much faster growth of my blogs.
Part of this process was paying more attention to thinking about what type of reader I wanted to attract to my blog. This thinking later led me to create reader profiles for my blogs.
Action Item: spend some time working on reader profiles for your blog.
It dawned on me that I'd not only become a little complacent with growing my readership but I'd probably also become complacent about creating compelling and useful content for my blogs.
This wakeup call changed all of that. I began to identify my readers' problems and needs, and write content that served my readers rather than content that I thought might rank well in Google. In doing so I created content that made a big impression upon the readers I did have – and they did the next step, sharing it with their friends!
Action Item: spend a little time each day dedicated to trying to understand your readers needs. This might be by creating a survey for your readers, engaging with readers on social media, running a poll or discussion oriented post or perhaps even shooting some emails out to those who've left comments on your blog to try to get to know them.
At the time the term 'guest posting' wasn't that common but people did feature content from other bloggers from time to time. I sought out a number of these opportunities and they drew new traffic to my blog but they also helped me get ranking again through new incoming links to my site.
Action Item: identify a few other blogs in your niche that accept guest posts and try to come up with some ideas to pitch them for posts.
At the time I didn't realise how important this would end up being but I started a free newsletter for readers of my site.
I offered to email monthly updates to anyone who signed up with the best content from the blog. It started very slow and initially only sent a trickle of traffic to my blogs each week but today we now have over 1,000,000 subscribers and each week when I send these emails the result is great waves of traffic.
Action Item: if you've not got a newsletter already, set one up today!
At the same time I began to realise that I should be working hard to promote other ways to subscribe to my blogs. I began to promote our RSS feed more prominently both in navigation areas but also occasionally in blog posts.
Action Item: when was the last time you mentioned your RSS feed on your blog? Perhaps it is time to incorporate a Call to Action to subscribe to it?
Back in 2004/5 social bookmarking sites were just starting to hit the scene. Over the next few years we saw sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious and Reddit rise in popularity. I didn't spend a heap of time on them but certainly began to create occasional content that I thought might have a 'shareable' appeal to it which led to some great spikes in traffic when that content did hit the mark and get shared around.
Action Item: spend a little time on sites like StumbleUpon or Reddit to research the kind of content that gets shared around on the topics that you write about.
At the time there wasn't a lot of social networks around but in the years that followed I certainly began to jump onto networks like Twitter, Facebook and Google+ as a way to engage with readers but also drive traffic.
Action Item: another thing to spend some time researching is what social networks your readers are on. You can find this out with a survey or poll – but also check out what other blogs in your niche are focusing their energies upon.
I also spent more time getting to know other bloggers at this time. At the time as there were so few social networks this was largely done through commenting on other people's blogs and email.
At one point in my early years I made a point of emailing one other blogger in my niche (or related niches) every week. This led to some great friendships and a few profitable partnerships in time too.
Action Item: Set a little time aside this week to reach out to another blogger in your niche. You never know where it might lead!
2005 saw me make a decision to start finding readers to my blogs through attending and running events. It started very humbly by me running some free workshops in my local library to 20-30 people at a time but in time I saved enough money to attend some conferences relevant to my content – and eventually even got invited to speak at a couple. All of this helped grow traffic, little by little.
Action Item: is there a meetup or event that is running in the coming months in your local area that relates to your niche? If not – why not try pulling one together? It need not be anything major – even a small gathering could lead to some interesting opportunities.
At this time I also realised that while all my Google traffic had vanished, I still had something pretty powerful – I had regular readers. The people who had already subscribed via RSS or had bookmarked the site in their browser were real people and they were connected with a lot of other people.
Rather than spending all my efforts looking for new readers, I decided to spend some serious time looking after the ones I already had. So spending more time in comments on my blog, emailing readers to thank them for contributions, linking to their blogs, running site challenges and engaging with them on social media all helped to build relationships which led to readers telling others about the site.
Action Item: look through the last comments left on your blog and choose one reader to give some personal attention to. Shoot them an email, visit their blog, follow them on Twitter – get to know them!
Another technique that helped grow my blog a lot at this time was promoting the content I was writing to other bloggers in the hope that they might link up. I didn't do this for every post but when I'd written something that related to the topics of other blogs I would email those bloggers suggesting that they take a look.
Back in 2004, this would often lead to those other bloggers blogging about it. Things have changed a little and I find that most times these days when you pitch other bloggers they share the posts on Twitter or Facebook – perhaps not quite as good as a link on a blog but still a great way to grow your traffic.
Action Item: Choose the best post you've written in the last few weeks and find a blogger to shoot the link to. Before you do – check out my post on How to Pitch Bloggers which is written for PR people but is also relevant to us sharing our content too.
My intent with engaging in the above strategies was to diversify the sources of traffic coming into my blog and become less reliant upon search engines.
I'm glad to report that the strategy worked and traffic from other places did increase, however the unintended implication of doing all of the above was that my traffic from Google actually increased too!
While I'd previously done some SEO on my blogs with limited success this intentional effort to grow my readership from other sources than Google actually increased my search rankings higher than they'd ever been before.
The satisfying thing is that while I'd hate to fall out of Google again my business today wouldn't but sunk by that happening. It'd hurt – but the blow wouldn't be fatal any more.
Looking for more teaching on the topic of growing your readership? Check out my free webinar on the topic here (it's completely free without any need to register).
You might also like to read my recent post that analyses 5 posts from the first year of my main blog – Digital Photography School – and how they led to 6 million views since publishing.
PS: in the coming days I want to turn my attention to other areas that I think it might be wise to diversify in as a blogger.
I started guest blogging to rebuild my blogs traffic. Also writing contents seriously from now.
The most hard and clever thing is to create a reader profiles. Is it your unique idea?
I've not done guest posts for a few years but in the early days I did quite a few.
The idea for reader profiles is used in numerous businesses – I first eared about it from an advertising executive who created them for advertising campaigns that they were building.
I've since heard of many people using them to describe customers, readers of magazines/newspapers etc. They are sometimes called 'Avatars' or 'Personas' too.
This is really useful – thank you! As I was reading some points, I'm happy to say I was thinking "check, check" – but I could certainly do with re-visiting each point and doing more. I shall be storing this article somewhere safe, so I can refer back to it, and so that I can share the points with my little introvert clan – who, by the way, I have just learned to value far more as a result of your article.
Great post Darren – Its certainly more relevant today than it would've been a few years ago.
Apart from the traffic diversification methods, it'll be great if you could share the revenue diversification techniques that you adopted.
How critical is AdSense revenue for you today?
Briliant post. However, things have changed alot over time. It some how become far more easier to generate traffic from other sources courtesy social sites. To get that.. not only your title should be catchy enough but content should also grab readers attention to be shared. That can end up providing constant stream of traffic over time.
You did it in times of unavailability of social site medium so you should be appreciated for that.
You are huge inspiration for me and thousands of fellow bloggers.
Darren, I've been following you sporadically for a while now, and just want to say thank you for this post (and others, of course)! I recently re-engaged with blog-style content in an effort to figure out the key to building a sustainable, quality site with unique content, and your diversification ideas really got my wheels going and forced me to start looking at the various ways I can create streams of visitors to the site.
Keep up the fantastic content, and thank you again for the inspiration to buckle down!
I'm very new to this game. My site has only been up and running for a couple of weeks, and I'm still finding my way around Word Press – I could almost write a separate blog on 'How to get a handle on basic Word Press functions for a tech-deficient Gen-Xer'! Naturally, I have been devouring your posts throughout this very steep learning curve.
My focus at the moment is to get some good original content up and keep it coming, and try and build a mailing list so that I can start a newsletter. What did you find was the most effective way to encourage readers to sign up for a newsletter?
Thanks for these great tips, Darren. These will be of great help as I increase my blog readers as well. All the best!
I agree with you Darren, our first focus should be delivering quality products posts to our customers, the readers. They are our assets that need to be valued and taken care of. Without them we cannot achieve anything of value.
I too have learned the hard way not to rely on one source of traffic. As you have said participation in relevant forums can help to bring quality traffic to our blogs. I have also found that youtube traffic is also one the best converting traffic a blog can get.
Once again thanks for another gem.
Another terrific post. I got a lot of good ideas but the biggest takeaway for me was to hang in there and be consistent.
Building anything takes time. Too may people, including myself, get hooked on the shiny object syndrome and give up on stuff too early.
You could have quit when your traffic issues arose.
But you stayed the course. You believed in yourself and your business; the result being today's success.
Thank you a lot for this two last posts, there are very interesting and i hope that gonna help me a lot.
My question is, Darren, does getting links by guest posting still work. Some say it'll get u punished as for link buyers.
Many of us relied on Google years ago to drive all the traffic to our blogs and websites. While that strategy is still important, there are no shortcuts to success. Most online bloggers discovered there is no substitute for networking, creating great content and interacting with readers. Reading other blogs, guest blogging and pitching good blogs is also effective and helps you become a better reader and writer.
I think that your lesson comes back to basic marketing: understanding your customer needs and behaviours is the key for any business to grow.
I have found that guest blogging works. It can bring you some traffic if you have written useful articles on other sites. These days it is better not to rely on Google for the traffic.
Hi, is website speed is going to be a great issue for Google ranking. In my blog there is post regarding restarting of Sony Xperia, In all days I'm getting only around 200 visitors for this post.
But I just come to know that there are around 10k+ searches every day for this issue. My post has got so many back links including from Sony's blog also. Still there is no hike.
I'm hosting in "Host Gator" shared hosting cost around $200/year for unlimited domain+space+band width. Is this hosting going to kill my blogs?
Diversification is the soul of least-risk in every blogging venture including traffic, monetization and even content sharing. I would follow all these tips to make my blog free of undue risks.
Now days , each hour new blogs are created with OMM(online money making) niche , so on which blogs topic Blog and which you should chose for your blog.
Great post, Darren. I like how you mentioned doing better on Google as a result of diverifying traffic methods. Many bloggers and website owners alike tend to focus too much on SEO. I think that when you actually focus on the reason why you made your blog and 'not so much' on SEO, that is when you do better at search engine ranking. If you focus too much on SEO, you might find yourself writing for bots rather than humans.
I found the exact same thing. As soon as I stopped worrying about the almighty Google and focusing on my readers, social networks and content the Google traffic miraculously increased. It's still tempting to log into Analytics every now and then but I'm not on there everyday sweating the small stuff.
This time if you depend on some traffic source google,guest blogging & social Newtwork etc, you cannot compete other. You try all source.
I having gotten into e-mail newsletter marketing yet nor heavily into meeting up at Internet marketing events, but I know all of these tactics are useful. Back in 2007, I learned the hard way too, about relying on search engine traffic solely as a means of secure Web traffic. Over the years, I learned social bookmarking, forum networking, article marketing and blogging or all useful methods combined to help bring in visitors out of the wood works on the World Wide Web. Last but not least, I also learned that quality content posted to your site daily will do more than keep search engine spiders interested going beyond just getting people to read your stuff.
you got over 1,000,000 email subscribers !
wow that's amazing , i think 90% of visitors will not be interested in email subscription..
guest blog is one way to earn traffic. still not confident to write on other's blog.
[ Smiles ] I like the part about pitching other blogs.
I am yet to give social bookmarking a try.
Thank you for providing such an informative post on the different ways drive traffic to your site. I do agree, the first you must do when creating a blog is having a newsletter and creating a subscribing list. A lot of my traffic from my site is also from Social Media like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, And Pinterest. This are my top social media that I do very well with and able to connect with others.
As always a great post Darren! I havenot tried Google Trends yet and I am going to do that right now. These are really great tools to gauge where your website ranks and need to improve. Thanks for the article!
Good reminder, Darren! I'm getting close to half of my traffic from search engines (almost all of that from Google), which is actually down from 80%+ not long ago. A big part of that is #4 on your list! But I'm still paranoid that my search traffic will disappear overnight. That would be bad!
We are passing through the same phase that you were in 2004. I agree sir business based on Google Adsense never get success and dreams vanish. Please i request you to put some more light on how to build readership.
I think this is a crucial mindset to establish early doors in a project. One algo update could scupper all your plans and ignoring the other traffic streams available to you simply can't be ignored anymore.
Other then greating quality content and basics of SEO, what should be some of my first steps? I really have a desire to come out swinging in the social media(connecting with my "hopefully soon-to-be") readership. Though I know very little about the social platforms at the moment, I am working constantly to change that.
Great tips. I personally have a problem with Google. They're the worst business partner you could ever have, because they don't care about you or your site. So I'd love to be Google free too, and that's what I plan to do. If I get in their SERPS then fine, but I won't be actively trying to get there.
Great article! As a realtor in Charleston SC real estate, I normally write about news, updates trends and things hapening in Charleston and share them to several social media platforms.
I share not only showing properties but also events/activities in the said areas as well as answering my visitors queries about real estate related topics. I also encourage my visitors to share their own experiences about a particular subject discussed in my blog post. This fuels fruitful conversation and foster engagement.
People go online not only to communicate but also to learn or find answers to their questions. By providing useful information, you are creating a positive impression to your audience, and sooner or later, you become a trusted authority in the business.
Joining several forums and answering questions on areas that you are knowledgeable about will improve your credibility. You can also find several potential contacts in forum sites where you can ask to become guest authors on their websites.
The tips you've shared are very useful. Thanks for the wonderful article.
It's extremely kind of you to share such a pity experience with others. Now I see that google is not as reliable as it may seem.
That's great, Darren. One should not put their eggs in one basket.
This may sound weird but I was invited to participate in a group giveaway and I couldn't believe how many Facebook and Twitter followers I gained. Now I have thousands of followers from participating in giveaways but none of them give a hoot about the content on my Blog. Here's the weird thing, I'm now getting paid to write reviews and sponsored post just because I have a huge following, now of which will probably read the reviews or sponsored posts!
Great post btw, just what I needed since I've just starting out.
So what if you would give me your best advice to drive traffic to your blog, what would that be?
I will definitely start reading your blog.
Very Nice article for newbie like me. Thank for sharing for us !
My Google traffic always increases when I get lots of social mentions too.
I know the popular travel blogger Gary Ardnt relies very little on Google traffic and has good success with FB ads for acquiring new readers.
I totally agree Darren, We should always diversify our traffic sources.
My strategy is 50% Search traffic and 50% social + Newsletter traffic.
As in these days search traffic has became unreliable due to frequent updates.
NIce article, and finally enjoyed reading.
87% of my website traffic is from Google search. But now.. Dec'13 I suddenly saw a dip and im exactly think the same like how you were in 2004. Worst thing is my google adsense application got rejected again and people who copy my content blindly (I can even see my name there) have an approved adsense account. Not sure how I can get my account approved.. went thru" policies word by word. Thanks for the above information..


GREENACRES, Fla. /Florida Newswire/ -- The City of Greenacres recently accepted a vision and strategic action plan created by the award-winning redevelopment firm, RMA. The city, located in the heart of Palm Beach County, has already begun prioritizing key elements of the plan for implementation to realize the vision and strategic goals.
GREENACRES, Fla. /Florida Newswire/ -- Redevelopment Management Associates (RMA) today announced it has been hired by the City of Greenacres to develop a vision for the City and create a strategic action plan. RMA will guide the 8th largest municipality in Palm Beach County towards future economic growth by implementing the firm's proven strategies which have reinvented numerous cities throughout the state.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. /Florida Newswire/ -- Redevelopment Management Associates (RMA) has been selected by the City of Hallandale Beach and the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) to create a new vision plan for the City and to update the CRA plan in order to stimulate economic development activities, attract investment and spur redevelopment/revitalization.
POMPANO BEACH, Fla. /Florida Newswire/ -- Redevelopment Management Associates (RMA) today announced that they have terminated their contract as Managers to the Pompano Beach CRA, a position the firm has held since 2009. Despite the redevelopment agency's newsworthy success in transforming the city, the firm's principals, Kim Briesemeister and Chris Brown, felt that terminating their contract was their only option due to the hostile environment that has been pervading the CRA meetings over the past few months. The termination letter submitted on February 1, 2018 will result in a 90-day transition period.
MIAMI, Fla /Florida Newswire/ -- Redevelopment Management Associates today announced that the Miami-Dade County Commission voted 10-1 to approve RMA's redevelopment plan for the Naranja Lakes CRA. The award-winning Pompano Beach-based redevelopment firm was hired by Miami-Dade County to write the plan for the recently expanded CRA area, which will contribute towards the development of the Strategic Miami Area Rapid Transit (SMART) plan in South Dade.
POMPANO BEACH, Fla. /Florida Newswire/ -- The Pompano Beach CRA is proud to announce the "groundbreaking" ceremony for the new Atlantic Boulevard Bridge. The marine-themed event will eschew the typical shovel in the ground for something "reel" fun. The new look for the bridge has been designed by Currie Sowards Aguila Architects and will be built by Burkhardt Construction. The public is invited to attend the ceremony which will feature speeches by company officials and local dignitaries.
MIAMI, Fla. /Florida Newswire/ -- As of the 11:00 a.m. advisory, Miami-Dade County is currently under a hurricane watch. This means that hurricane conditions are possible, usually within 48 hours. The current forecast predicts Tropical Storm winds in Miami-Dade by Saturday. Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez has issued additional evacuation orders for all of Zone B and portions of Zone C.
POMPANO BEACH, Fla. /Florida Newswire/ -- The Pompano Beach CRA has partnered with the Urban Land Institute to host a unique symposium outlining the $500 million investment opportunity available for developers in the Pompano Beach Innovation District. Nationally recognized redevelopment experts and invested developers will provide comprehensive details about the last 24 acres of undeveloped parcels in Broward County with prime visibility from I-95.
POMPANO BEACH, Fla. /Florida Newswire/ -- The Pompano Beach Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) has issued a call for artists of all disciplines to submit applications for the City Vista Artist in Residence (AiR) program. City Vista is a mixed-use apartment building located in the heart of the developing downtown district.
POMPANO BEACH, Fla. /Florida Newswire/ -- The Pompano Beach Cultural Center opened Thursday, May 11 with a spectacular ribbon cutting ceremony featuring dancers whose costume unfurled to become the red ribbon cut by Mayor Lamar Fisher and an esteemed group of City, County and State leaders.


text:
The Myth of 'Self Made' and The Role of Privilege
June 3, 2019 3:31 PM Subscribe
Is Meritocracy A Myth? and Other Awkward Conversations CBC Radio talks about how much privilege plays a role in what we think of as Self Made Success Stories. Is the concept of the American (or Canadian) Dream not only not possible anymore, but was it ever a real thing?
The mefi post How Much Opportunity Is Dependent on Owning Property raises some great questions about how Millennials can ever possibly get into the real estate market without some serious outside help. But there is a larger picture of whether success of any sort is possible without privilege. And that privilege is so entrenched - we don't even see it, let alone talk about it.
posted by helmutdog (77 comments total) 52 users marked this as a favorite
Yes, meritocracy is a myth. Hell, the very concept itself illustrates the point - how are you determining merit, determining worth? Those very decisions are the essence of privilege.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:42 PM on June 3 [35 favorites]
There's a podcast version of the radio story posted here. Queued it up for the evening commute. (If anyone else has trouble getting the CBC article to load in Safari, Firefox seemed to handle the page better.)
posted by FallibleHuman at 3:45 PM on June 3 [1 favorite]
Of course the American (or Canadian) Dream is possible. You can always find isolated examples of people bootstrapping with a mixture of ambition and luck.
But we shouldn't build social policy on top of isolated examples with the implicit assumption that if a few can do it, anyone can, and if you don't achieve the Dream then it's your own damn fault.
So instead of asking if the Dream is possible, look at measures of economic mobility for the entire polity. How difficult is it in general for someone in the bottom quintile to move up to the top quintile? How likely is it for children born into the top quintile to remain in the top qunitile?
The data shows a high degree of economic mobility in Denmark and Norway, a moderate level of mobility in Canada, and very low mobility in the US and UK. It looks like the Canadian Dream is still alive, but the American Dream has become more myth than reality.
posted by ascii at 3:45 PM on June 3 [32 favorites]
I take occasional pleasure in informing hardcore fans of 'meritocracy' that the word was coined in a work of dystopian satire. They tend to just double down on their existing beliefs, but the looks of confusion as they process the cognitive dissonance can be fun.
posted by FallibleHuman at 3:49 PM on June 3 [26 favorites]
I don't know if even economic mobility matters from an ethical standpoint: a pyramid-shaped society isn't just simply because it has a lot of churn.
posted by Pyry at 3:56 PM on June 3 [13 favorites]
I take occasional pleasure in informing hardcore fans of 'meritocracy' that the word was coined in a work of dystopian satire.
And the author's son becoming the most textbook example of falling up just proves the world runs on irony
posted by The Whelk at 4:04 PM on June 3 [10 favorites]
I have constantly seen meritocracies play out well on a small scale. Up to say, maybe 20 people in a homogenous profession will sort themselves efficiently. As soon as you get to the point where the definition of merit is codified people start gaming the system and that's the end of that.
But self-made and meritocracy are two entirely different concepts. A meritocracy doesn't require that you have an even start, and if being born into immense privilege allowed you to acquire great skills then who cares? You're the right person for job you get the job. It doesn't even pretend to be about social equality.
As for the self-made thing: Anyone born in the First World can't be self-made. It's just not an available option.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:50 PM on June 3 [14 favorites]
It was interesting to listen to this conversation on Tapestry, a program which mostly focuses on spirituality and religion. It has an interesting discussion of the pushback against Forbes' declaration that Kylie Jenner was the youngest self-made billionaire.
Anyway, can you really be self-made if you're using a language that other people invented?
posted by clawsoon at 5:01 PM on June 3 [3 favorites]
I take occasional pleasure in informing people who like pointing to The Rise of the Meritocracy that the point the satire is trying to make is that society is better when it is ruled by an aristocracy
but it does raise an interesting point about the goal of a more fair world: there are going to be people who lose out in that more fair society, who will refuse to accept a value system in which they are now low-status, and there'll be a lot of people who still remember that old value system and will feel that they have a point, even if their status hasn't changed much. It's not entirely clear there's a path between automated luxury space communism and here.
posted by Merus at 5:04 PM on June 3 [5 favorites]
No, it is not. Meritocracy works if you put your mind to it and not think negatively like a lot of people do.
Hard work, put your mind to it. The 2000s-2010s recession and economic inequality has caused people to be mediocre.
There is no such thing as a fair society---economically----but we can raise people out of poverty and recreate middle class/working class dreams to become wealthy.
posted by YankeeKing6700 at 5:30 PM on June 3 [1 favorite]
Define "merit". Define what skills are to be "meritorious".
It's the same privilege bullshit, just in a new wrapper to make it seem more palatable.
Not so much a myth as a freakin' joke.
posted by metagnathous at 5:37 PM on June 3 [1 favorite]
The latest episode of the podcast Citations Needed covers another facet of the meritocracy myth: the frugality myth, or that it's really feasible to scrimp and scrounge your way into riches, with particular attention paid to the goofy FIRE movement.
Besides the general grossness of shaming poor people for buying any creature comforts like (gasp!) a cup of coffee, the episode gets into what is always missing in the meritocracy/self-discipline narrative, and (as many people upthread have already pointed out) it's that the "success" stories universally leave out that they inherited gobs of capital, had their college paid, got greased into a high-paying job they don't disclose, and/or were otherwise born into massive privilege. The fact they like, cut their own hair now is totally irrelevant to their financial standing.
Like, sure, saving is good, working hard is good. But acting like either way is even comparable to going to say, being gifted a few hundred grand in real estate is a lie knowingly peddled by a predatory ownership class who wants you to work harder, reward yourself less, and hey why not buy some shitty financial instruments (or, there's a reason most big "personal finance" blogs are put out by investment banks, credit card companies, or their affiliates.)
posted by joechip at 5:40 PM on June 3 [24 favorites]
I used to work with a guy who'd go back behind the garage to smoke a joint, and then stand there as I did his job and regale me with tales of The Freeloaders and The Lazies who are ruining America.
I would have complained to the boss, but he was the nephew of the CEO. So, I did two jobs, and he got moved into management.
Should just call it a ROFLtocracy.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 5:41 PM on June 3 [35 favorites]
Merus, as a USAian, it wouldn't be the first time I misunderstood something about the UK!
There's a Fall of the Meritocracy aside in the article about the Tripartite System which gave me the impression that the book was a leftist critique.
posted by FallibleHuman at 5:43 PM on June 3
Merus, I haven't read the book in question, but I had not at all gotten the impression that it was a defence of aristocracy. The author's main quote on wikipedia focuses on the lack of an adequate measure of merit and the problematic nature of unequal societies in general:
It is good sense to appoint individual people to jobs on their merit. It is the opposite when those who are judged to have merit of a particular kind harden into a new social class without room in it for others. (wikipedia)
More generally on the topic of meritocracy, I keep coming back to the tournament metaphor: that the broader structure of income and wealth in our economy is basically set, like prizes in a tournament. We can compete for those allocated places and their predetermined rewards, but the overall distribution of those rewards is not something any individual can impact. There is only one first place, one second place, one third place, and they get prize money because that's how the tournament organizers designed the system.
Viewing the world in these terms makes it clear that even if we did have a (non-distopian) meritocracy, we need to care about how much gets allocated to everybody, all along the distribution. We could have a real meritocracy where everyone agreed on what merit was and who was the most deserving, and everyone was paid the exact same thing except the most meritorious gets a free ice cream cone on their birthday. Or we can have an equally valid and agreed upon meritocracy where that person gets literally all the money.
The gap between those two scenarios is rooted in policy and politics and how much we believe in the concept of merit itself.
posted by ropeladder at 5:47 PM on June 3 [8 favorites]
I take occasional pleasure in informing people who take occasional pleasure in informing hardcore fans of 'meritocracy' that the word was coined in a work of dystopian satire, that the word was actually coined by a sociologist in an article for the journal Socialist Commentary.
posted by Pinback at 5:49 PM on June 3 [13 favorites]
Merit means hard work.
It is incredibly insulting to tell someone who grew up dirt poor, or middle class day to day parents living paycheck to paycheck, went to school, busted their ass through law school/business school with a scholarship to create their own business with the money they started out with to create an empire and say that it's privileged bullshit.
I don't envy the rich----I admire them because Americans want to be rich. Not stay in the same stagnant condition in life asking for a handout. That's not what this country is about. It's about equality of opportunity--not outcome.
If you are the child of wealthy people, good for you, you will probably grow into the family business if you are interested, you grew up privileged. The question remains whether you live off your parents' wealth, or you do something to build something on your own.
posted by YankeeKing6700 at 5:57 PM on June 3 [2 favorites]
It's also incredibly insulting to tell the millions of people who work just as hard or harder but don't become lawyers or billionaires thanks to institutional racism and/or sexism (or just plain bad luck) that their hard work had less merit than the few lucky ones.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 6:19 PM on June 3 [87 favorites]
Any society that accepts the premise that certain members are "losers" who don't deserve basic dignity is not one I'd aspire to be a part of.
posted by kevinbelt at 6:21 PM on June 3 [39 favorites]
So I think it's always to remember that the answer is both 'yes absolutely' and 'well it depends on scale.' People can and do achieve relative success based on talent and resolve and such, especially if given a level playing field. That's a big 'if' tho, and that 'relative' is even bigger. A little income inequality poisons the well. The level of income inequality in the US means that the well is purely poison. Buckets and buckets of poison that you can pass around and use to poison other wells.
posted by es_de_bah at 6:30 PM on June 3 [7 favorites]
If this were true then coal miners and hotel maids would be millionaires, not jackwads that joined the right society at yale because their dad told them to.
posted by dis_integration at 6:30 PM on June 3 [52 favorites]
[One comment deleted. Hi YankeeKing6700, moderator here. Please cool it; you're a new member coming in pretty insistent and looking like you're after a fight; if that's not your goal here, take a step back.]
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 6:32 PM on June 3 [12 favorites]
"The game may be rigged, but if you play harder, you can still win" seems like very bad advice.
If the game is rigged, addressing that is not "victimhood". It's smart.
That's not what this country is about. It's about equality of opportunity--not outcome.
That is a myth and a lie that America has peddled since it's inception. America is about the myth of equality of opportunity, but it has never actually lived up to that for all it's citizens. For some of them- yes. For a brief time in some cases- yes. But opportunity has never been equally spread in the country. NEVER.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 6:35 PM on June 3 [21 favorites]
Respectfully, if anyone thinks that "Hard Work = Success" in this country, then they've only been paying attention to a very small subset of cases that happen to support the premise, and ignoring the vast, VAST set of cases that don't.
posted by darkstar at 6:36 PM on June 3 [19 favorites]
I'm not a victim. I say the above as someone who works hard to an unhealthy degree, started out poor, and has been pretty successful at least partly as a result of that hard work.
But I would have to be delusional not to acknowledge that, as an old, straight, white man from a family that at least expected that I should be able to educate myself to whatever extent I was willing to apply myself (so long as I was also willing and able to pay for it myself), that even starting out poor, I was still unfairly advantaged. Do I have merit? I sure hope so. Is my success evidence of merit? No it isn't. It's evidence of luck, nothing more.
Isn't enjoying a nice life or suffering through a hard one enough? Why do we all have to act whatever your lot is, you somehow deserve it? Who fucking knows if you deserve it? What does that have to do with anything? The whole concept is childish.
And how about this shocker: we could cooperate instead of compete.
posted by rue72 at 6:42 PM on June 3 [36 favorites]
I came across this on Fast Company of all places, about how a belief in meritocracy seemed to correlate with different kinds of discrimination. Not just a lie, but a dangerous, destructive lie.
posted by jeoc at 6:43 PM on June 3 [11 favorites]
If America wants to have a happy life and society, yes, I agree with Bernie Sanders and the progressives that universal healthcare paid by the taxpayers should be a top priority, and get out of the corporate healthcare industry.
There should not be a healthcare insurance industry.
That will bring the equality that progressives desperately want.
But in terms of wealth and money and success, it is none of your business how much money some rich person makes. Don't go around saying that you want Americans to be educated and civilized and turn around and attack them for getting educated and moving up socially in a economic mobile way just because they made more than $250,000+ in income. It is none of anyone's concern.
Don't call yourself an ally of people of color, who have been historically poor in this country due to slavery, etc. and when some of them become wealthy (Oprah, Robert F. Smith, LeBron James), you slam that wealth as well.
There's a significant distinction to be made between someone who's highly educated earning $250k per year, and someone who has a net worth of billions of dollars due to the distortion field that affects edge cases in capitalism.
I don't begrudge anyone their success who achieved it with a sense of honesty, humility, and self awareness, and who doesn't think that their success entitles them to bypass the rules. Success isn't morality. If anything, success should bear extra accountability and should bear additional responsibility.
The thing about equality of opportunity is that it's usually built on the outcomes of previous rounds. You can't really have equality of opportunity if you don't have equality of outcome, at least over the aggregate.
Besides the general grossness of shaming poor people for buying any creature comforts like (gasp!) a cup of coffee, the episode gets into what is always missing in the meritocracy/self-discipline narrative, and (as many people upthread have already pointed out) it's that the "success" stories universally leave out that they inherited gobs of capital, had their college paid, got greased into a high-paying job they don't disclose, and/or were otherwise born into massive privilege.
The thing I can't quite explain is that my parents appears to have genuinely scrimped and saved their way into wealth. They both came from very modest backgrounds, neither has a university degree although they both have trade certificates back when that meant something, and it seems like they ran a series of small businesses and built a portfolio of property until one of the businesses blew up. Of course, they live in a more equitable country than America is, but they were white and presentable so they had access to capital. I remember once my mum managed to get a hold of a million dollars to buy a business she saw as an opportunity by getting lots of little loans from people she knows - a system I've definitely heard formalised in more marginalised communities.
Merit means having certain specific skills and using them unhesitatingly, like Liam Neeson in "Taken". American society constantly lies about what skills are required for success, and Business Schools and Law Schools only teach them indirectly. Depending on the field of endeavor, Cynicism is frequently one of the necessary skills; Honesty rarely is (but judgement as to WHEN to be honest more often is). Hard Work? Better to know where to apply your work.
It's at least partly a Meritocracy... but most of us get the wrong meaning of "Merit".
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:30 PM on June 3 [5 favorites]
Neither of my parents were college graduates -- my mom never attended, and my dad went to 1 year of a religious college and dropped out to join the Marine Corps. They never owned a home and never rented anything other than apartments, not in the best neighborhoods.
I'm female, fat, alcoholic, and came out as a lesbian when I was 20. I went to college on scholarships, grants and student loans. I graduated in 4 years with a degree in engineering and have been working continuously for the past 35+ years in engineering. I make a nice income, have a nice house, and it looks like my partner and I should have a nice retirement.
Although I've worked hard and it hasn't always been easy, I can't call myself "self-made". That would discount my grandma who taught me to read when I was three, my mom and dad who stayed married even when it was hard, our weekly visits to the library, the excellent public education system in 1960s California, our church, and, oh yes, the fact that I have white skin. Once I graduated from college, I was fortunate enough to get a job with a highly respected company with managers that mentored me and put up with my bullshit while I finished growing up. Then I got to go to a lot of management development programs. 20+ years ago, I found my way to AA where a lot of people helped me learn to live without alcohol. Self-made? Not even.
posted by elmay at 7:46 PM on June 3 [27 favorites]
Several comments from someone who's basically a "winner" in the meritocratic world (by my own scoring anyway):
1) The term "meritocracy" started as an insult and I think that should be well understood by both people who defend it and people who think the problem is we've moved away from it.
2) The best analogy I ever saw for our current world is that success is like winning the lottery. Hard work, ambition, talent, networking, family connections, etc. are the currency you use to buy tickets. Anyone who tells you that they won the lottery because they had a good business plan is full of shit. Claims that people did things that improved their chances are not necessarily false though. (This wonderfully funny video is the source of this comparison.)
3) Claims by the ultra rich billionaires that they are self-made, or studies by economists that show things like this, are trivially correct. Inequality in the developed world has increased so rapidly in the last 40 years that there basically cannot be a class of people who inherited billions from their parents right now, because their were so few billionaires in the past. (I got this point from economist John Quiggin point I believe.)
4) I really don't think there's much qualitative difference in people who "win" by making a quarter of a million in salary vs making tens of millions or billions. It's still luck, intelligence, favorable tax laws and scraping off a lot of the productivity growth of the last decades. The most salient difference is that a lot more people are prone to rationalize why their wealth is from hard work if you draw the line at 250k/year. (Dream Hoarders captures a lot of what I'd have to say here.)
posted by mark k at 8:17 PM on June 3 [8 favorites]
But in terms of wealth and money and success, it is none of your business how much money some rich person makes.
How much money a person has is my concern when that wealth becomes a threat to my liberty.
And if you think billionaires funding pro-billionaire propaganda isn't a threat to your liberty, well, I can't help you.
Personal wealth is fundamentally the portion of the collective wealth that we're hoarding from one another. There's a certain amount of hoarding that we tolerate, or even encourage.
We think it's good for someone to have a house, a car, et cetera. But when someone's got 4 houses and another hasn't got one, well, now that hoarding is hurting someone.
Someone who hoards 4 houses is (by many markets) a millionaire.
So, therefore, a billionaire is someone who's hoarding the equivalent of 4000 houses. That is why being a billionaire is immoral.
posted by explosion at 8:43 PM on June 3 [31 favorites]
It;s also the difference between personal property and private property, one is something you use for its own use "I need a home to live in" the other is something you use as a form of investment over other people "I rent this to other people and pocket the difference"
Everyone who hasn't achieved uncommon success thinks everything is because of luck; everyone who has achieved uncommon success things nothing is because of luck.
posted by PhineasGage at 9:18 PM on June 3 [4 favorites]
And (to not abuse the edit window), a quote often attributed to golf champion Sam Snead: "Golf is a game of luck. The more I practice the luckier I get."
posted by PhineasGage at 9:19 PM on June 3
I thought this LSE podcast / lecture by Daniel Markovits was a very interesting argument about how the myth of meritocracy works in the US and how unprecedented the distortions it has produced are.
posted by little onion at 9:21 PM on June 3 [2 favorites]
It is none of anyone's concern.
In fact it is everyone's concern. For anyone to be rich, many others must be poor. Otherwise we wouldn't bother making the distinction.
This kinda thing is basically parroting the prosperity gospel.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:37 PM on June 3 [27 favorites]
For anyone to be rich, many others must be poor.
That's an assertion contested by many.
well, we would say we want to abolish the idea of a rich person, when everyone can treat money like a rich person and act like a rich person then everyone is rich.
Public Luxury and Private Sufficiency and all that
I just finished reading White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America by Margaret A. Hagerman (which was extremely well done and nuanced and I highly recommend it), and one of the links she makes is between a belief in the American Dream and highly racist attitudes among affluent White kids. If you believe everyone can make it if they just try hard enough, then that tends to go along with the belief that those who don't make it just aren't trying hard enough; given the white supremacist society we all live in, that maps onto racist attitudes toward marginalized groups.
posted by lazuli at 9:55 PM on June 3 [21 favorites]
Meritocracy is just a more appealing repackaging of the Just World fallacy. It allows you to blame others personally for societal distortions and inequalities.
posted by benzenedream at 10:59 PM on June 3 [27 favorites]
It is incredibly insulting to tell someone who grew up dirt poor, or middle class day to day parents living paycheck to paycheck, went to school, busted their ass through law school/business school with a scholarship
This is me (except for the empire, but when I've felt the need I've made a salary in the 2%). I was still born white, reasonably healthy in body and mind, to married, English-speaking, U.S. citizen parents who both had college degrees (each first in their families, but still) and a stable housing situation, and benefited from a remote relative deciding to help pay for a couple years of expensive boarding school. My childhood was not privileged relative to that of most white U.S. citizens, but privileged it nonetheless was. I didn't earn any of the benefits I reaped from the conditions I just described.
posted by praemunire at 11:14 PM on June 3 [10 favorites]
This is interesting, as I can totally believe that most Canadians subscribe to a revisionism that meritocratic/Dream is somehow "ending" or in a decline for millennials. But if you consider the context by which Canada as a country itself was built, "meritocracy" was always an absurd lie. The first atrocity was the taking of the lands of the First Peoples here. The Dream was already poisoned. That fragile white Canadians don't get this, and that immigrant Canadians are protected from knowing this history, should be telling.
posted by polymodus at 11:22 PM on June 3 [10 favorites]
Meritocracy is a national religion here in Singapore, and it is almost universally thought of as a great thing. I think historically this was because meritocracy was marketed as an alternative to corruption, which was endemic in our part of the world back in the 60s; rewarding people who actually work hard versus those who just pay their way to power.
There was a certain sleight of hand, though, in how "meritocracy" has changed from then to now. The process probably went something like this:
Corruption is horrible, we need to be a meritocratic society where only deserving people are in power.
We wipe out corruption, and reward people based on "merit", which is a reflection of their value to society.
We love capitalism and think it's great! So we reward meritorious people with money. We also use money as a way of judging people's contribution to society, since in a free market, you get paid what you're worth, amirite?
So now that we live in a meritocratic society, all the people who are rich totally deserved to be rich, since their wealth is an indication of their societal value, and they got the money because they contributed, since we're meritocratic, amirite?
People who are poor? Well, I guess they must be lacking in merit, since if they had merit, they would be rich.
Our country is awesome!
In other words, it is the intersection of meritocracy and capitalism that produces a justification for neoliberalism.
posted by destrius at 11:30 PM on June 3 [28 favorites]
I think some people suffer from a lack of perspective. It's very easy to argue that you've earned everything solely by the sweat of your brow when you consider your life experiences to have been less exceptional than they were. My first girlfriend once told me that her family was "solidly middle class" while we were standing in the foyer of her executive-level parents' mansion. A kid I went to high school with once told me "hey, we're not rich! My dad only makes six figures!" I think some people truly believe that their lives have been unremarkable, when in fact they've been in a top percentile since they were born. But work is work, stress is stress, and it seems like everyone worries about money, no matter how much they have. So the narrative of success begins with the hard work and talent, not with the family mansion or the parents' high incomes and connections, because everyone's parents had houses and jobs, right?
I mean, some people truly are breakout successes who came from humble beginnings. But in my experience, way more people want to SEE themselves that way, because it's more flattering than the truth.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 11:30 PM on June 3 [18 favorites]
It's all that and more. Belief in meritocracy is also driven by a belief that your own talents will protect you from forces that are out of your control. If you earned everything you have by the sweat of your brow, then nothing can truly threaten you - even if you lost everything in a fire or something, you could make it back. So there's an element of fear there that makes it very appealing to people.
And like all the best lies, it's not entirely false: it's true that hard work is a real factor in most success stories, so it's easy to discount everything else that goes into some people having more than others. If someone making $250K/yr tells me they work their ass off, I believe them. It's simply that that's only part of the story. That helps make the belief very entrenched.
A further thought I wanted to share on this point: a belief in meritocracy logically extends to authoritarian tendencies because it's a good reason to trust the rich. After all, if someone is a billionaire, they must be smarter than your average Joe, and are therefore more capable of making tough decisions to fix things. If I had a nickel for every time I've ever heard that used to defend Trump, well. People would probably be overestimating my talents too.
Anyway. It's pretty easy to see how people fall for this shit, but it's not just gross, it's dangerous.
Upon preview:
posted by mordax at 11:36 PM on June 3 [19 favorites]
The wikipedia entry on Meritocracy is interesting and quick easy read to get up to speed on the concept. I know, reading is hard work.
posted by polymodus at 12:06 AM on June 4 [2 favorites]
Perhaps there is a psychological need to contest the overwhelming evidence of wealth inequality, regardless of personal status. Our society has a narrative about success and how one attains it, which has to ignore empirical inequality in order for it to work. Most successful people probably don't want to believe they are evil. Relatively unsuccessful people probably don't want to think they are potentially suckers in a long con game.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:02 AM on June 4 [6 favorites]
Nobody with the most passing understanding of child development would think we live in a meritocracy and all have equal opportunity. So much of our later lives is dependent on lead exposure, nutrition, educational opportunities, exposure to stress, exposure to poverty, etc from an early age. I don't mean in how much money kids have to work with when they turn 18, I mean how one's brain literally, irrevocably develops is affected by a variety of material factors that are completely beyond a child's control and will shape who they are and what they're capable of for the rest of their lives. Without programs like mass lead and mercury abatement, easy access to quality early childhood education, widespread well-baby and well-mother programs, parental leave, and all that we cannot possibly assert that kids living in sub-optimal home situations will get the same opportunities as those not. And that's not even delving into how one's epigenetics are shaped in the womb by generational stress and poverty.
posted by schroedinger at 5:37 AM on June 4 [26 favorites]
I have read the book - and this is entirely a disingenuous description of Michael Young's point.
In the novel, The Rise of the Meritocracy, the meritocracy is perfect. It's science fiction - and part of the fantasy-science is that they have an utterly perfect way to measure intelligence and talent, and power and status are distributed accordingly, with no thought to birth.
And it's horrible - not because it's a bad meritocracy, it's a perfect meritocracy - but because inequality is horrible, regardless of how it's justified. Whether based on aristocracy or meritocracy, it's still inequality.
I don't know how all this played out in the author's personal life, though I know that Michael Young was a socialist and instrumental in ending the grammar school system in favour of one that was less stratified.
But the novel is quite clear: it's not the method of distributing status which is problematic, it's the unequal distribution of status and quality of life. It argues that even if someone is not very bright or talented, they deserve to have a comfortable life, because we all do.
posted by jb at 6:19 AM on June 4 [10 favorites]
Meritocracy is used as a cover word here in Singapore to excuse racial, inherited and class discrimination that quickly separates and filters children by the time they hit the start of primary school.
My kids have gone to public schools here intended for children in theory equally. One kid has access to a massive swimming pool and two huge libraries, daily volunteer taught extra classes for learning disabilities and the teachers get extra help with admin. The other kids had to go to a separate charity-funded center for their extra classes, a playground and basketball court and a regular small field, and a small library plus overworked teachers.
Mostly, the parents at the first school tell me that the reason their kids do better than other kids is 1) random luck, 2) genetics or 3) they are better parents. No-one has ever told me it's because they are richer and have more social advantages because well. Why admit the truth?
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 6:56 AM on June 4 [7 favorites]
No-one has ever told me it's because they are richer and have more social advantages because well. Why admit the truth?
What's hilarious is that their privilege is what bought them the luxury of that continued self-delusion.
posted by rue72 at 7:00 AM on June 4 [1 favorite]
When they use all manner of tax loopholes and lobbying to avoid taxes and Trump Tax Cut and such, it goddamn well is all of our business.
I'll be over here sharpening my guillotine.
posted by Fleebnork at 7:17 AM on June 4 [11 favorites]
[One comment deleted; YankeeKing6700, I'm giving you a one-day ban. First, don't make threads about the people in them -- by saying stuff like "people like you just want __". Second, your comments are responding to stuff people here aren't actually saying. It makes it seem like you're just here to troll, and that's not allowed here. You can reach the moderators at the contact form.]
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 8:12 AM on June 4 [10 favorites]
But of course, if you mention the process of choosing which primary school* to go to, many rich parents here will start talking about the necessity of spending huge amounts of money to buy a property near the school of choice.
Primary school allocation in Singapore is this huge, complicated game, which is theoretically fair because schools give priority to kids who live nearby. But of course rich people can buy houses and move to be able to take advantage of that. That's one of the ironies of meritocracy in Singapore, really; many of the people who speak very glowingly of how our system is meritocratic and fair, are the same people who will spend tons of time and money getting their kids into the right school, sending them for enrichment lessons, camps, and tuition classes.
* elementary school equivalent
posted by destrius at 8:16 AM on June 4 [6 favorites]
Dream Hoarders is an excellent book. The author and I have different starting values, so I didn't agree with him on everything, but it is very good.
posted by jb at 9:31 AM on June 4 [1 favorite]
Also, everyone should read Pinback's link from above -
The term meritocracy arose in socialist circles in the 1950s as a derisive term for a new system of class oppression. The first known use of the term is by Alan Fox in the journal Socialist Commentary of May 1956. Fox writes:
[Social stratification] will remain as long as we assume it to be a law of nature that those of higher occupational status must not only enjoy markedly superior education as well but also, by right and necessity, have a higher income in the bargain. As long as that assumption remains—as long as violation of it are regarded as grotesque paradoxes—then so long will our society be divisible into the blessed and the unblessed—those who get the best of everything, and those who get the poorest and the least. This way lies the "meritocracy"; the society in which the gifted, the smart, the energetic, the ambitious and the ruthless are carefully sifted out and helped towards their destined positions of dominance, where they proceed not only to enjoy the fulfillment of exercising their natural endowment but also to receive a fat bonus thrown in for good measure.
This is not enough. Merely to devise bigger and better "sieves" ("equality of opportunity") to help the clever boys get to the top and then pile rewards on them when they get there is the vision of a certain brand of New Conservatism; it has never been the vision of socialism.
The bolding is my own, to emphasize the heart of the criticism of "meritocracy": the critcism is not about the merit (poorly defined or not), it's a criticism of -ocracy.
No more equality of "opportunity" whether false or true. I want (relative) equality of outcome - I want EQUITY.
The biggest giveaway in the meritocracy scam is its descriptive nature. Merit is always, without exception, described after financial and social success is already gained. Someone is rich or high-status, then everyone including the person in question goes back and cherry-picks justifications for how they got there.
Merit is never, ever prognostic of success. No one is able to see someone working hard or possessing talent and predict good things in their future. No one is able to say "I am 100% certain that person will be elevated to wealth and status".
For every person who "made it", there are twenty smarter, harder-working people who didn't.
posted by FakeFreyja at 9:59 AM on June 4 [20 favorites]
The idea that billionaireism is laudable and praiseworthy if the billionaire in question is a POC is a ridiculously gross and harmful one. Just as no human empire has ever flourished without slavery being an enormous part of that society, no billionaire can exist who has not harmed many hundreds of thousands of people along that journey to financial excess, not only as a direct outcome of their primary business practices but also through the policies and legislation they personally fund or through the things in which they choose to invest.
posted by poffin boffin at 2:40 PM on June 4 [6 favorites]
>>For anyone to be rich, many others must be poor.<>That's an assertion contested by many.<
I tend to agree, it is not really pie. A bigger piece for you does not imply a smaller one for me.
posted by twidget at 3:00 PM on June 4 [4 favorites]
I think some people suffer from a lack of perspective. It's very easy to argue that you've earned everything solely by the sweat of your brow when you consider your life experiences to have been less exceptional than they were.
Indeed. Ask yourself - when someone is thinking about the role of hard work in success, what sample are they using? Most people will compare themselves and their peer groups against other people they know who will usually share a broad set of characteristics already like high school classmates or colleagues.
If I compare myself to my colleagues, it's clear that the most successful ones are typically the ones that work the hardest. The same if I compare myself to my friends from university.
The trouble is those groups have already been pre-sieved pretty extensively.
The statements: "among a group of graduates of a university in the global top 10, the hardest workers tend to be more successful than the laziest" is not remotely the same when you apply the same logic to the whole population of a country, let alone the world. Even the laziest among us are now successful professionals, less successful than the real go-getters, but still people who own houses in and around London in their early 30s and go on a few holidays a year.
posted by atrazine at 3:02 PM on June 4 [4 favorites]
Possibly at this point, real sources should be happening, from an economic standpoint.
posted by XtinaS at 3:13 PM on June 4 [3 favorites]
In the first world, we are usually talking about relative poverty, not absolute poverty.
While economies can grow, at any given moment in time, they are finite. And since relative poverty is about the relative share of income/wealth in an economy, then the economy is like a pie. If someone (or a class of people) goes from having 20% of the wealth of a given population to having 50% of that wealth, then the rest of the people have less, relatively. And in the developed world, relative poverty and inequality is still associated with bad social and health outcomes.
Another example would be the wage share: the share of income that goes to labour as opposed to capital. As the capital share goes up, the labour share (by necessity) goes down.
This is why people get angry about the rich: their greater share of income hurts our share - and we see it in our daily lives when looking at resources like housing. The buying power of the upper middle and upper classes (and investors) has actively driven prices up in many markets - and that's made those of us with more stagnant wages poorer.
posted by jb at 4:57 PM on June 4 [7 favorites]
> The bolding is my own, to emphasize the heart of the criticism of "meritocracy": the critcism is not about the merit (poorly defined or not), it's a criticism of -ocracy.
Both Fox and Young's writings, though, go deeper than that - they're both as much a criticism of the "merit-" aspect as they are of the "-ocracy".
In context, Fox's idea that "the gifted, the smart, the energetic, the ambitious and the ruthless" and "clever boys" deserve to be "sifted out" and helped to "get to the top and then pile rewards on them when they get there" is dripping with sarcasm. Young's book is even more explicit, with the central conceit of its dystopia being that "Intelligence combined with Effort equals Merit".
Ultimately both are riffing on and highlighting the fact that, as I've seen quipped, "meritocracies" almost always turn out to be "mirrortocracies" - the merits that are valued are the ones that a nascent or established gatekeeping group sees in itself.
Which - given that those 'merits' can be and have been used to justify a multitude of sins, from simple shitty group exclusionism to paternalism to toxic masculinity/feminism to Nazism and neo-Nazism to the current absolute batshit insanity of several Western 'democracies' - clearly indicates that, if nothing else, the choice of which traits to use to define "merit" needs some serious, continuous, and context-dependent examination.
In other words, the criticism is not simply of "-ocracies" - it's also that there is not and cannot be a clear and universal measure of "merit", so it's a bullshit measure to use for any sort of governance…
posted by Pinback at 8:40 PM on June 4 [6 favorites]
Pinnacle: fair enough - the criticism of inequality was what I personally took away from Young's novel. I started the book as a believer in the kind of meritocracy he satirized, and came out a critic of -ocracies (that is, the idea that some people are just worth more and deserve better lives - not the idea that some people should be in administration of our governments, which is necessary).
posted by jb at 4:34 AM on June 5
Thanks jb for actually bothering to explain.
Next time I'll make a little more effort to substantiate my hot take reaction to neoliberal logic.
I'm no Malthusian, but I think you'd have a hard time pointing to any period in modern history including the present where this wasn't implicit.
"A rising tide lifts all boats" is a nice axiom, but like supply-side economics it's more a rhetorical position than a theory.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:11 AM on June 5 [1 favorite]
It's a theory (a hypothesis), but it's not a Theory (i.e. with evidence behind it).
The truth seems to lie some place between the extremes of mercantilism (the world is a finite pie, and we're fighting for our slice through colonialism) and Adam-Smith-exaggerated-liberalism (the world is infinitely rich, we can all get richer together). It's quite clear that wealth and value in general are not finite, but many important resources are, and also at any given moment the existing value is finite - which leads to a question of distribution of resources and wealth/value.
posted by jb at 9:01 AM on June 5 [2 favorites]
Whatever the case is, the economics of it is not like divvying up a pie, since the use value of money is very nonlinear. A hundred bucks to a starving person means a lot more to them than a hundred bucks to me, which means a lot more to me now than when I start a new job in two weeks.
It's like I have a magic pie where I can give a slice of it to three people and still have half a pie, and those three slices will each turn into half a pie for the people I give it to, except I'm afraid to do that since I'm worried about starving in the future so I'm overeating now because precarity is built into the economy.
OK that's a terrible analogy, but divvying up a pie is a terrible analogy for how the distribution of wealth in the economy actually works at a large scale.
posted by Zalzidrax at 12:05 PM on June 5 [4 favorites]
Vox had an interesting piece on meritocracy and equality of opportunity a while back — The case against equality of opportunity:
Equality of opportunity is nearly impossible to measure, but you know what we do know how to measure? If people's incomes are growing. How equal the income — and wealth — distribution is. If poverty is falling. If life expectancy is increasing. If children are learning. How long kids are staying in school. How many people lack permanent homes. How many illnesses — physical and mental alike — are going untreated. These things are not necessarily easy to measure. But we can, and do, measure them, and we know how we want the numbers to look at the end of the day.
That's because they're outcomes, the thing opportunity egalitarians define themselves in opposition to. By embracing them, we give ourselves goals to strive for, a basis to determine if our politics are working, a clear path forward. By rejecting them, we are left with a morass of conceptual confusion. Equality of opportunity is a distraction. It takes our eyes off the prize. And in the process, it perpetuates the logic that lets actual inequality fester. The sooner we stop talking about mobility and opportunity and start talking about poverty and suffering, the sooner we can solve these problems.
posted by Kilter at 4:00 PM on June 5 [5 favorites]
here's another quote from Kilter's link, which encapsulates why I think "meritocracy" is abhorrent, even if (by magic) the definition and/or measurement is perfect:
Equality of opportunity is also a morally heinous ideal. It is a way for us to justify the abandonment of people who — we insist — were given opportunities and squandered them. Even if it were possible to achieve equality of opportunity, it's not an achievement worth fighting for.
Call it the Good Will Hunting problem. The title character and his friend Chuckie (played by Ben Affleck) both expect to work menial jobs their whole lives, by virtue of having been born working-class in South Boston rather than rich in Back Bay. Will gets out, not because he is Chuckie's moral better or even because he works harder than Chuckie, but because, due to some genetic fluke, he has a near-perfect memory and is a mathematical prodigy. Chuckie, meanwhile, is stuck working jobs he hates, telling Will, "I'd do anything to fuckin' have what you got."
Equality of opportunity promises to help people like Will. It promises to abandon people like Chuckie.
Equality of opportunity is usually defined in opposition to equality of outcomes. The idea is that there are some people who struggle despite being smart, hard-working, industrious members of society. They deserve the same opportunities that smart, hard-working, industrious people in the upper classes receive. Good Will Hunting is an effective romanticization of this ideology, a portrait of a world where a good intellect is all you need to escape poverty, a depiction of equality of opportunity in practice.
That all sounds rather pleasant. But equality of outcomes would also help these poor, smart strivers. The difference is that while equality of outcomes promises gains for every poor person, equality of opportunity explicitly leaves some people out. It tells the poor who are not Mensa members, who don't have the work ethic of John Henry, that they deserve nothing. It gives Will Hunting everything, and offers his Southie friends squat.
No matter what definition of merit, someone will be left behind. It might be someone disabled, or maybe just someone who is "average" (averagely talented, averagely lazy) - they shouldn't have to be remarkable just to have a decent life.
posted by jb at 11:27 AM on June 6 [4 favorites]
LGM has a good dissection of the "merit myth:
In life in general, where performance is almost far more difficult to quantify in any even loosely objective way, that myth is far more corrosive.
The merit myth exists to justify the maintenance of extremely hierarchical anti-egalitarian social structures. If there are 10 or 100 or 1000 times as many people who have the ability and desire to, say, write cover stories for prestigious magazines, or to attend hyper-elite colleges, or to be captains or at least lieutenants of industry, or to star in a Hollywood movie, or to write the Great American novel, as there are social slots available for people to fill these roles (and there are), then you've got to create sorting mechanisms that give the impression that these slots aren't being handed out arbitrarily, or worse yet on the basis of pre-existing social privilege.
That's where Jeffrey Goldberg and his search for ultra-rare gynecological journalistic muscles comes in.
Goldberg's mission, as he understands it, is to perform the extraordinarily difficult job of finding people who can write good Atlantic cover stories. He thinks this job is hard because there are so few such people. It is a hard job — but for exactly the opposite reason. There are enormous numbers of extremely gifted hard-working creative etc. American journalists out there, many of them working for nothing or close to it, for reasons that are too obvious to belabor.
All this applies equally to actors, writers, aspiring disrupters of the market for whatever, potential HYPS undergraduates, and so forth.
It's a big country. So what to do? The answer is you come up with a bunch of largely phony metrics for sorting out sheep of supposedly unicorn-like rarity from the vast multitudes of goats.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:34 PM on June 7 [5 favorites]
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