There’s one quote from Twilight of the Elites (Chris Hayes, 2013) that has stuck with me since reading the book earlier this year. In sharing his experience attending the prestigious test-in Hunter College High School in Manhattan, Hayes acknowledges that the idea (and social stratification and skin tone) of merit begins to homogenize over time. In one sentence he laid bare the lie of meritocracy and it cut deep for me:

The pyramid of merit has come to mirror the pyramid of wealth and cultural capital.

In the tech and venture capital space there’s ample criticisms of meritocracy out there dispelling the head-slap-inducing claims made by ill-informed tech bros who have found themselves in positions of power. I’d be lying if I said meritocracy didn’t appeal to me at least on some level; rewarding highly skilled labor with higher pay accordingly appeals to my sense of fairness… but then I hear about CEOs earning 290⨉ the average worker and the whole system begins to crumble for me. Sure, they assume some risk… but never seem to suffer the same consequences. Despite its aroma of enlightened empirical fairness, meritocracy is ultimately a tool for protecting the status quo.

You can see it with your own eyes. Merit goes to the already wealthy. Merit magically awards itself to people from the same fraternal organization. Merit goes to people of similar net worth, who look the same, talk the same, believe the same, joke the same, and have the same education. Merit goes to symmetrical acne-free faces, shampoo model hair, designer scents, six pack abs, and strong jaw lines because those people must have earned it through hard work and not surgery, drugs, photoshop, or genetic lottery.

This year has poured a gallon of salt into this festering wound for me as my own country’s government tries to set “meritocracy” against “diversity, equity, and inclusion” –as if they’re opposed concepts, rather than the latter being a framework to recognize and correct pre-existing biases– then proceeding to nominate the most inept, corrupt, and deceitful people to perhaps ever occupy a government role. A cabinet full of regressive billionaires, cowboy cosplayers, and conservative television hosts papering over their racism with a flimsy banner of meritocracy. The entire administration is an insidious heist to enrich a small cabal of already wealthy families and we’ll be paying for this televised crime spree for generations.

I don’t want to fall into the trap of comparing DEI and meritocracy. Instead, I think we can examine meritocracy based on its merits; its an entirely gameable system that is for sale, prone to in-group biases, and often nullifies its own intent. Merit then will always mean money when its for sale. Plain and simple.

Diversity then… of people, wealth, cultures, and thought… is an antidote. A Darwinian cure to prevent groupthink and corruption that flourish in meritocratic systems. You and I remember the old truths, the old dreams, the old habits of loving thy neighbor. We’d do good to protect diversity, encourage it, and nourish it.