Meritocratic vs. Egalitarian Visions of Freedom
There are two competing visions about the value of freedom and what the life of a free human being should be like. I think understanding what these are, who holds them, and why, is the key to understanding our political divide.
In one vision, which we can call ‘meritocracy,’ the real value of freedom is that it allows the excellent and exceptional few to thrive. When these individuals can exercise their talents to the fullest they will make scientific breakthroughs, invent new products, build great companies, make marvelous movies. The rest of us will benefit as we make use of their inventions, get jobs in their enterprises, enjoy the fruits of their creativity and hard work—as their efforts trickle down.
In this vision, the greatest sin is getting in the way of the talented few. We need to have systems of education and training that identify these people, let them emerge, and then channel them into the best experiences, schools, and opportunities to thrive. We want secondary schools with strong programs for gifted students, lots of testing and competition, and high standards. We want elite colleges and universities that look closely at test results and other achievements and pick the cream of the crop. We want a free enterprise system that lets people take risks and win big or lose big without too much interference from high taxes or regulation or other constraints.
Many meritocrats call for public policy to focus on a level playing field. Exceptional talent can come from anywhere, not just from particular races or classes or genders. The best results for society as a whole will come from making sure everyone gets a fair chance to compete. But it’s critical that in doing this, standards aren’t lowered, and affirmative action and political correctness don’t undermine the basics of merit-based advancement. Because the underlying human reality is that we are not equal, certainly not in the characteristics that count for real achievement. Don’t coddle people; let them compete ferociously and see who wins. There is a ‘natural aristocracy’ of the smartest, toughest, hardest-working, most ambitious.
If your heart melted at 18 when you read Atlas Shrugged, you were responding to this vision. Of course, it is a given that when you were melting, you were identifying yourself with the elect few. You weren’t thinking that maybe you were one of the poor shmoes who didn’t have what it takes to rise to the top.
But if you did, you might have a different view of what freedom is about.
In this alternative, freedom is good not primarily as the way to let a few people do exceptional things, but as the condition that allows ordinary people to live decent lives, without being abused by the aristocrats—whether natural or artificial. Let’s call these freedom-lovers ‘egalitarians.’
Egalitarians are wary of meritocratic arguments because it is very difficult to keep a ‘natural aristocracy’ from morphing into an old-fashioned oligarchy of birth and inherited advantage. People who get rich and powerful try hard to stay that way and pass their privileges on to their children. They don’t want a level playing field anymore; if their kids are born on 3rd base, they want them to advance from there, not return to the batter’s box. It is human nature to convince yourself that your money and status come from your individual excellence, not any advantages of birth and fortune. Hence the embarrassing contortions from the Mitt Romneys and Donald Trumps to try and persuade us that they earned their way to the top.
Like oligarchs throughout history, oligarchs in our democracy have found ways to protect and perpetuate their position. Much of this is done by using wealth and access to elected officials to gain privileges in the tax code and elsewhere. Many self-defined meritocrats, such as today’s libertarian titans of Silicon Valley and the Texas oil fields, have little use for democracy, which they see as a threat to their freedom. Hence their advocacy for ways to limit popular power by allowing unrestricted flows of money into politics, limiting voting rights for the poor, and supporting media and messaging designed to confuse the public and discredit democratic institutions. Preferring weak and easily manipulated government, they are happy when people don’t trust elected officials and think politics is corrupt or rigged. (Here their interests overlap in dangerous ways with those of Putin and other enemies of the United States.)
Egalitarians on the other hand tend to favor strong and effective government as the only way to counter the oligarchs. They want rules and laws that constrain the power of the rich, and programs that help everyone make it to the middle class and stay there. Tax policy should be steeply progressive and designed to break up inherited fortunes. Politicians need to be insulated from the temptations of deep-pocketed lobbyists and rich contributors.
Clearly these competing visions are both present in today’s America, and often in the same person. Who doesn’t believe in the American Dream of rising by individual effort and talent? Many Americans, including many of the poor and disadvantaged, admire the country’s flamboyant billionaires and hope devoutly that one of them will set up a distribution warehouse in their neighborhood. But who doesn’t also believe that somebody needs to keep a watch on Wall Street and make sure we all have a decent education and—increasingly—decent health care? Many Americans are scared of rising inequality and the gap between a few insanely rich and powerful individuals and the decaying middle class.
Navigating this divide is not new—it has been at the heart of the American experiment from the beginning. Here’s what Madison has to tell us in the famous 10th Federalist as part of his argument for how the new Constitution will reduce the effects of ‘faction’:
- The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. [emphasis mine] From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.
Here Madison is acknowledging the meritocratic contention, that people are different with regard to their different capacity to succeed and become rich (“acquire property”). And government’s responsibility, in fact its greatest responsibility, is to allow these faculties to realize themselves. Human progress depends on individual initiative.
But if we accept this, it will lead to a division of society into those who have property—the successful winners of the merit-based competition—and those without. Freedom does not produce an egalitarian utopia.
- But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.
Inequality is the inevitable result of freedom, and with inequality comes factions and clashes of interest. Democratic government has the great task of ‘regulating’ these interests. It must act for egalitarian interests by mediating between the haves and have-nots to prevent the permanent victory of one class over another. It must stand for the common good and not be captured by one faction.
However, while Madison admirably and succinctly describes the challenge, it is hard to agree that Federalist 10 gives an adequate solution. Madison is focused on the dangers of a ‘majority faction’, meaning a majority that has an interest that is not consistent with the common good. For this the extent and diversity of the country are a check. But the danger of oligarchy or rule by those “with property” is a threat posed by a minority. Madison says unconvincingly that the majoritarian principle prevents this; a minority faction will simply be voted down. Rich and powerful minorities, however, have many ways of influencing elected officials—and electorates– that outweigh the ballot box. Outright bribing and vote-buying are only the most egregious methods. Today campaign contributions, lobbying, and media manipulation are preferred and effective tools.
In 1789 the size of the United States was a real obstacle to forming a cohesive minority faction with national clout, but advances in communications and transportation changed the situation a long time ago and continue apace. Oligarchical interests find it easy to coordinate national-level campaigns, and their smaller size and focus gives them an advantage compared to the mass mobilization needed by egalitarians. Dedicated libertarian meritocrats like the Koch Brothers and the Mercer family have outsized influence on our politics because they and a coalition of like-minded oligarchs have worked over many years to shape the rules of the game to maximize the impact of wealth, block transparency, and weaken the power of egalitarian institutions like labor unions.
Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Tipping Point, has a podcast (“My Little Hundred Million,” part of his Revisionist History series) where he contrasts how wealthy philanthropists donate to higher education. Some have used money to expand opportunities for poor students, like Hank Rowan who gave $100 million to start an engineering school at Glassboro State College in New Jersey. Rowan, however, is the exception. More common are people like hedge fund manager John Paulson, who gave $400 million to Harvard. Why these huge donations to schools that already have massive endowments and few needs? In effect, they are giving money to perpetuate oligarchy. (All of this at taxpayer expense, since these acts of charity are tax-deductible).
Gladwell says the Paulsons are playing basketball, a game that depends on one or two top stars. The Rowans are playing soccer, which depends on having a lot of good players. Basketball is a strong-link game, soccer is weak link.
The strong-linkers, the meritocrats, think the best use of resources is to make the top even higher. Give more to the Ivy League. Reduce taxes on corporations and the rich. Define money as a type of speech to make it easier for wealth to influence the political system. (And to be fair, today’s meritocrats are not found only on the right or in the billionaire-class. The top 20% who fight to get in the right neighborhoods with the right schools that get you in the right colleges have also bought into the meritocratic narrative).
Most American meritocrats believe in democracy but favor limits on popular sovereignty. And among growing pockets, democracy is not so secretly disdained in favor of ‘strong leaders’ like Putin or top-down systems like China. China understands itself increasingly as the world’s real meritocracy, drawing on its tradition of hierarchy and exam-based leadership.*
The weak-linkers, the egalitarians, want to broaden the base. Make college education affordable for everyone. Tax the rich more to pay for this and other uplift programs. Limit private spending on political campaigns. Most American egalitarians believe in a market system but want stronger government action to help people succeed in a modern economy, and to constrain what they see as the dangerous power of modern oligarchs. Many look to wealthy social democracies in Europe as offering better models for the United States.
This is not the only fault-line in America, but it is one of the deepest. Two sides, both dedicated to freedom but understanding it in different ways. Neither one is unambiguously right, but ask yourself: are we threatened more today by too much egalitarianism, or too much oligarchy? Look at the trends in economic inequality. Look at the political strength of wealthy special interests. Look at the arguments for unregulated free markets that were behind the financial crisis. Look at who we elected president.
The marchers we just watched in Charlottesville should be anathema to both sides and to any side that espouses freedom. But they emerge from the extreme fringes of the meritocratic vision. They feel themselves to be the rightful winners in a racial competition who are not getting their due. They want to re-establish a hierarchy they think is ordained by nature and God, and validated by struggle and violence. They hate a government that they think is assaulting their racial and cultural hegemony with “affirmative action” and “political correctness.” It is vital to stand up to them and to their many intellectual and moral cousins who want us to think that the only meaning of “freedom” is freedom from government. Government that is genuinely of, by and for the people remains the only means of preventing today’s meritocrats from having their way with our country.
*For an explanation and defense of China’s self-understanding, see The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy, by Daniel Bell.