America after Meritocracy by Chris Hayes - Essay Example

Twilight of the Elite: America after Meritocracy by Chris Hayes Chris Hayes is the of Twilight of the Elite: America after Meritocracy. He is the editor of The Nation magazine as well as the talk show host at MSNBC and political commentator. His other articles, including essays and reviews appear in The New York times magazine, the Guardian, the American Prospect, the New Republic, the Washington magazine, and Time Magazine. Hayes has built a reputation for his role in political, economical, and social criticism. In this book, Hayes looks at meritocracy, where the best in society- elite- rules the rest, and how it affects the society. According to, meritocracy is not the cause of the many problems in American society; instead, it is the process of pursuing it that forms the root of all problems. This statement holds true in most cases since people will try as much as they can to guard what they have, including their social status. Chris Hayes in this book provides a detailed and readable analysis of societal failures, ranging from economic, sociological to economical aspects of society. He explains how institutions, one after the other, are marred with cases of corruption and general incompetence. These institutions include Wall Street, Congress, Catholic Church, Corporate America, and Major League Baseball among others. Hayes refers to America as a “failed decade” (Hayes 50). This is because it was marred by a myriad of social malpractices, ranging from inequality to corruption. Examples include the Enron scandal, wars, and fights like the Iraq war, drug abuse in sports sector as well as the botched responses to environmental catastrophes like Katrina hurricane. These profound societal failings have resulted in erosion of public trust in these institutions, as well as the high ranked elites. Due to meritocracy, a good number of powerful people, men and women, rose to the top, which caused a greater social gap between them and the ordinary citizens. These new elites were prone to falling into the corruption test, and failing at it too, compared to any system before them. This further broadened the social gap, making inequality a social norm. Hayes characterizes the new elite as possessed by raw ambition, brains, and achievement hungry. This class does not mind presence of the large gap between them and the ordinary citizens, provided they remain at the top. This features, Hayes contradicts to those of the WASP that encouraged prudence, lineage, and humility as the guiding virtues in the society (Hayes 45). According to Hayes, this leads to a society full of few overachievers who rule and control the lives of the billions of ordinary citizens and underachievers. The resultant society lacks social mobility, with the elites having a complete grasp of the financial and political control. When the public ignores this inequality, the top brass are left susceptible to failure, including corruption and social isolation. The writing of this book was partly inspired by Thomas Day, an Iraqi war veteran who spelt out his loss of faith in America’s leadership. Inequality is the root of almost all injustices in the society. Hayes provides examples to illustrate this. The large gap between the priests and their believers led to injustices and catastrophes, where believer’s children were victimized (Hayes, 2012). Another example is the social gap between civilian elites and the soldiers causing suffering of the latter. On the economic front, social gap existed between those who were bailed and those who were not. He also faults the poor government and/ or authority response to such events. During the Hurricane Katrina for instance, most of the affected locals did not have the means of transport to evacuate the region. Instead of stepping in to provide such means, FEMA head Michael Brown said, "It is not the role of the federal government to supply five gallons of gas for every individual to put in a car and go somewhere”. This statement further elaborates the immense gap caused by inequality. It also pinpoints the lack of empathy and care for fellow humans that are a common behavior for the elites. According to Michael Brown’s statement, some problems are just for the ordinary citizens. The elites are neither affected nor appalled by them. As if that does not astonish enough, the catholic priests accused of sexually abusing children of believers were simply reshuffled and went on heading other churches. If appropriate policies existed, the priests would have been stripped off their priesthood, and the government could have provided transport means to New Orleans residents while empathizing with them. Hayes develops a theory in an attempt to explain meritocracy, based on Oligarchy theory. Oligarchy theory proposes that even the most democratic of nations suffer from inequality between the few rich and the majority poor. Hayes names his theory as the ‘iron law of meritocracy’. Here, “eventually the inequality produced by a meritocratic system will grow large enough to subvert the mechanisms of mobility” (Hayes 57). What Hayes refers to here is the fact that meritocracy if ignored, will completely kill mobility in all aspects of the society with time. These include social, economical band political mobility, and the result will be a society with too much inequality and social gap between one percent elite and the ninety-nine percent remaining. As a result, Hayes predicts that with time, the possibility of maintaining equality of opportunities will be undermined by the rapidly rising inequality of outcome. “Those who are able to climb up the ladder will find ways to pull it up after them, or selectively lower it down to allow their friends, allies, and kin to scramble up” (Hayes 57). From this quote, Hayes illustrates the greed-filled elites, who make up one percent of the American population. They are characterized by a sense of individuality and selfishness, which is evidenced by their identification of only people from their social circle. They disregard or completely do not care for the rest of the population. They will go to all lengths to make sure that only a few people remain on top and control those under them. In short, the inequality that gets the elite in their top positions leads to more inequalities. Hayes acknowledges the fact that meritocracy was okay in the beginning, since the sixties, after its introduction. This change from WASP establishment to meritocracy was brought about by the political change then. At the start, meritocracy was well received by the society since it operated for the benefit of the whole society. This system included both women and minorities in the governing system. However, this changed after about three decades when the elite became dysfunctional and corrupt. For example, in learning institutions like Hunter in New York, students are admitted after passing a single test (Hayes, 2012). This is prejudiced as only a few can afford private tutors and test prep packages necessary for passing such tests. In a sincerely meritocratic system, every student would have unlimited access to equal opportunities and resources. From this, Hayes remarks that such meritocratic environments produce ‘frauds’. This is because they are highly competitive and believe that only the best are supposed to succeed. Such institutions have no empathy for the unsuccessful. Success in this area is measured by smartness. The measure of success in life should be based on one’s wisdom, good judgment, ethical rigor, and empathy. In short, these values make one human, and that is the greatest measure of success. Twilight of Elites: America after Meritocracy outlines the methods that can be employed to correct the devastating effects of meritocracy. For instance, he proposes the rise of grass root movements like Occupy movement and Tea Party to counter elites’ activities. Most of these movements are founded by the middle class part of the society, who are relatively near the elites yet adversely affected by their failures. These reasons motivate the middle class to fight for change. Some strategies highlighted here include the reduction of inequalities posed by the elites, as well as the reduction of the social gap between the two groups (Hayes, 2012). This will work towards the eradication of national exhaustion, betrayal; and frustration caused by these differences. Attainment of social similarities will make the elites more responsive, thus fostering competence. Both the Occupy movement and the Tea party are two different movements, made up of varying ideologies as interpreted by the elites. However, the effects of meritocracy formed a common problem for them. If the two come together, then maybe the elite excess would be counteracted. As solutions to the problems of meritocratic system in America, Hayes makes a few suggestions. First, he acknowledges that America must champion equality, which is the root of the problem. He has a few suggestions on how this can be achieved. The tax system, for instance, should be modified to bring equality. If the rich’s taxes are raised and more of it redistributed to the poor, then the tax system can be equalized a little. He also suggests affirmative action, in addition to progressive taxation, as drivers of equality (Hayes, 2012). From these suggested solutions, it is evident that Hayes is merely treating symptoms as opposed to the real disease. Social distance between the elites and the ordinary citizens and unfair treatment of the latter will not be solved by redistribution of taxes. Instead, eradication of these meritocratic problems requires reforms in the policies governing the nation. Reduction of the social distance between the elite and ordinary citizens can be achieved by dispersing them to mingle with their subjects. This is by establishing an e-congress so that elites spend more time in the states they represent than they currently do. The media, also, have to be mandated to cover stories about all members of the society, and not just the rich. Another aspect that can lead to equality is the abolition of credentials that restrict the economically challenged from being elected and approved for leadership posts. Hayes makes strong and convincing arguments in this book concerning the consequences of meritocracy in the United States. He relates meritocracy to Oligarchy. His display of the inequalities between the elites and the rest of the society and the resultant remoteness of the ruling body is far from convincing. He relates these consequences to the availability of loopholes within the public policy. I commend Hayes for successfully illustrating meritocracy and its effects in the society while providing elaborate examples that almost everyone relates with at some point. However, his mention of the possible solutions to end these inequalities and wide social gap is understandably light. Even though Hayes talks about the United States in this book, people worldwide experience these revelations. Work Cited Hayes, C. Twilight of the elites: America after meritocracy (1st Edition) New York: Crown Publishing. 2012. Print. Read More