Is Britain a meritocratic society? Discuss the problems associated with such a conception of society?

This article discusses the challenges associated with achieving meritocracy in Britain. It highlights the influence of senior positions, education, and inequality on social mobility. It also examines the shortcomings of the concept of meritocracy and its impact on society.

Is Britain a meritocratic society? Discuss the problems
associated with such a conception of society?

Meritocracy refers to a system where the status and success in life depends primarily on
ability of a person’s effort, talent and achievements rather than their social position and
wealth. According to The Guardian, the word meritocracy was first coined by the British
sociologist Michael Young in his humorous novel, he did not consider it as something that
the country should ideally look forward to. (Wilkinson, 2017) In a nutshell, Britain is not yet
a meritocratic society.
Book by Saunders argues that the main obstacle in achieving perfect meritocracy is the
actions of the people who hold senior positions. (Saunders, 2016) These people work to
ensure that their children would have very low chances of becoming unsuccessful in life.
They achieve this through measures such as; taking their children to an independent school.
Although it is not a difficult task for a person from a talented and educated background to
climb up the ladder, the middle class and top executives are willing to do anything that ensure
their kin do not go down the ladder of wealth and prosperity. In contemporary society, a
person who is talented and is good in education stands a great chance of succeeding
favourably with others of the same calibre. However, rising through the social classes based
on merit is still challenging for those in high social classes. These efforts as explained above
are geared to ensure children from rich families remain rich. For Britain to become a
meritocratic society, it must find ways of ensuring that this form of inequality is eliminated
from the society (you havnt really explained the inequalities) .(These are explained
throughout the work).
To examine the state of social mobility in Britain, it would be wise to consider reviewing a
report released in 2017 by the Social Mobility Commission. The report clearly shows that
Britain is yet to be a meritocracy because social mobility policies have failed to bridge the
gap between the poor and the rich (Gov.uk, 2019). This is the case despite the numerous
efforts that have been made to make Britain a meritocracy in the last 20 years. One would

think that the efforts made by successive governments in the last two decades have borne
some fruits
There are several factors that affect social mobility in Britain. Education is one of the major
factors (explain a bit more how education has contributed to be one of the factor?). (This is
the primary focus of the second paragraph). Existing evidences show that there is still an
unfair distribution of opportunities in Britain. For example, the country is governed by those
who hold the major offices. These include the political class, the judiciary, the media and a
wide range of professionals. Since these positions determine the operations of a country, it is
very unfair for them to be run only by a unique class of elites who have some social
advantage. Another factor the employers are particulate about in employees is soft skills such
as confidence, courage and a visionary character. These skills include. There are several other
ways through which social mobility is curtailed preventing Britain from becoming a
meritocratic society. These are going to be discussed next.
One of these issues is that the students in private schools are more likely to have higher
grades when compared to their counterparts in public schools. Although educational
achievement is not the only determinant of the future job, these students also have a higher
likelihood of possessing the soft skills that employers are looking for. It is important to note
that most of the students who attend private schools are likely to have a rich background.
Similarly, those in public schools are likely to have come from poorer backgrounds. This
simply means that the students from a richer background are more likely to get well-payed
jobs. This curtails social mobility as it only works to ensure that the rich maintain their
position. It is worth noting that there has been increased representation of the minority groups
in relatively higher positions but people from higher social classes are still dominating.
People from poor background find themselves exposed to many hurdles that challenge their
rise to top positions. For instance, employers look for students who have had a good

internship (Kirby, 2016) after the studies. Most of such internships are not paid therefore, it is
harder for poor students to afford it. This leaves such opportunities to those from higher
social classes. Therefore, Britain is not a complete meritocratic society.
The Time for Change report notes that the rate of child poverty has increased after the
recession. The rise has led to about 30% of young people in Britain classed as poor
(Coleman, 2016). Students who come from unprivileged backgrounds still have a hard time
having a formal employment job. The report also observed that there were no significant
increments in salaries, especially for young people. This played a role in reducing their social
mobility. In addition, this played a role in preventing Britain from achieving its goal of
becoming a meritocratic society. The ideology of meritocracy assumes that the only
determinants of future prospects are hard work and competence (Coleman, 2016). Therefore,
a meritocratic society rewards its people based on what they do rather than other aspects such
as social background. The goal of improving the baseline for living standards is ensuring that
the poor have increased chances of becoming prosperous. This is especially beneficial to
persons who are born into conditions of poverty. It is worth noting that the only way to
ensure that opportunities are fairly equal is doing away with the concept of social
stratification (Stephen, 2018) (how?). As long as this concept still exists, it will be impossible
to create an environment where meritocracy can thrive. The Time for Change report also
notes the great challenges that children from poor backgrounds face in learning.
It is worth noting that social mobility and antipoverty policies can only succeed if they
approach the issue from a broad perspective (May 2016). According to Duncan (2018), the
reason for this is that the two concepts have been generational. Ending something that is
generational is not a simple task. Therefore, instead of focusing on assisting gifted children to
escape poverty, it would be wiser to look at the problem of inequality across the board. While
there is nothing wrong with helping gifted children, looking at the issue of social mobility

from a broader perspective would be more successful in achieving the goal of reducing
inequality (Frank 2016). In nutshell, Britain has made some steps towards becoming a
meritocratic society. However, there is much more to be done before Britain attains the social
system of meritocracy. Social mobility in Britain is still low.
As observed in the previous section, meritocracy might be the fairest system that there could
ever be. Most researchers observe that the idea of meritocracy might be one of the lies that
the political class has continually made to the electorate (Warikoo, 2017). The greatest
disadvantage of meritocracy is that it is not based on the equality of opportunities but the
equality of outcomes. It works in a way that ensures that the same group of individuals is
continually rewarded. Here is how this works. As Party observes, meritocracy rewards people
who have good outcomes. It continues rewarding these people whenever the expected
outcome is realized. According to Lim and Tan (2018), this rewarding of good outcomes
happens without considering the fate of the people who did not promise/achieved good
outcomes. It means that in every cycle, meritocracy will reward a group of people while
leaving others. Extensive evidence suggests that all the inequality that exists in the world has
its roots in the false concept of merit (Scully 2015). This is the concept that the ideology of
meritocracy seems to propagate.
The narrow definition of the word merit also possesses another challenge to the concept of
meritocracy (Lister 2006). There are no perfect ways of measuring merit. For instance, one
may not achieve high marks in class but may be greatly skilled in the area. It would be unfair
for the one who is highly skilled to be disregarded for a job/ receive poor pay just because
they are not educated. A meritocratic society has a tendency of treating any person who is not
educated as if they are not good enough. While appreciating that education is very important,

it is worth noting that not all people are talented in that area (Frank,
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb2016). People have different abilities. The best approach would be
treating people according to the set of skills and abilities that they have rather than using a
narrow definition of merit. Here is an example. Let us consider a person who is skilled in
taking care of young children. Although the person may not have a Ph. D in child
psychology, they have great experience dealing with young children. These skills should be
considered as merit and therefore should receive good pay. (good)
Cunningham and Devine (2015) observe, the concept of meritocracy is used by the political
class is to create false hope in the electorate/masses. The politicians sell this false hope in the
form of egalitarianism. The promise made is that every person will have an equal chance of
succeeding if they work hard using their special abilities or unique talents. The political class
often insists that the background doesn’t matter where one is from, they will rise to the top is
they work hard (Frank, 2018). In other words, they lead the public to believe that social
mobility is such a simple thing and that every person can become rich or successful if they
put in an adequate effort.
The greatest shortcoming of the concept of meritocracy is that it accepts inequality as proper.
The ideology it puts across is that as long as people have equal chances, then the outcomes do
not have to be equal. The outcome will be directly proportional to the input. In addition to
ignoring the fact that opportunities are not equal, the ideology also plays a great role in
dividing our society into two. According to Pluchino, Biondo, and Rapisarda (2018), the
elites do not live with the public and do not know the situation that they live in. The way they
view the world is very different from the way the common people view it. This leads some
ignorance since the elites do not understand or know the situation of the other lower social
classes. For instance, if an employer decides to hire, they will most probably look for an

employee from the same social class as themselves. The argument that is usually put across is
that such employees are better suited to understand and serve the clients (Chew, 2016).
It is worth noting that when Young was writing about meritocracy, he was mainly concerned
with the equality of educational opportunities. He was writing against the British system of
education that he argued was divisive in nature. The system used a narrow measurement of
IQ to decide what children would go to secondary schools and also the kind of schools that
they would join. He therefore proposed a different system of secondary school education
which was multilateral in nature. In addition to this, he advocated for a system that would
make university education more socially accessible. In his view, the accomplishment of these
tasks would help achieve a meritocratic society. It follows that one of the best ways of
achieving a meritocratic society would be focusing on improving the education system. If this
is not addressed, the achievement of meritocracy will remain to be a challenge. The best way
to achieve meritocracy is ensuring that the education system favours it. As Themelis (2017)
notes, a country that intends to have a bright future should focus on ensuring that the
education system is fair and addresses contemporary concerns. This would ensure that
positive progress is maintained. According to Kirsch (2017), if the education system cannot
address the problem of inequality, it is unlikely that anything else will. According to Warikoo
(2017), the education system has a great way of influencing the future of a country.
Conclusion
In short, meritocracy refers a situation where social mobility is based on merit. In Britain, the
political class has been promising the electorate that they will ensure that Britain becomes a
meritocratic society. It would not be true to conclude that no steps have been made towards
making Britain a meritocratic society. However, Britain cannot be classified as a meritocratic
society either. In contemporary Britain, there are several factors that prevent the country from

achieving meritocracy. These include the influence by the people who hold senior positions.
These people are likely to favour their relatives when it comes to appointments making it
hard for those from poor backgrounds to rise to senior positions. Another reason is that the
rich tend to trust that employees from a high social class are better suited to serve clients
compared to those from the lower social classes. In addition, the education system is such
that those in private schools are likely to excel more compared to those in public schools.
They are also likely to have the soft skills that employers look for. This gives them an
advantage when it comes to employment. This plays a role in preventing social mobility.

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