How 'Meritocracy' Justifies Privilege While Blaming The Less Fortunate

Meritocracy is the notion that you are rewarded based on ability and talent.

Sounds fair, right?

Those who work hardest and demonstrate the greatest skills receive the greatest rewards.

Except that's not how it works in real life.

You've likely met successful people who proudly declare, "I worked hard to get here." And they probably did. But that's not the whole story.

The Truth of ‘Merit’

Imagine two runners preparing for a race.

One has professional training, proper nutrition, top-quality shoes, and has been practicing on the actual race course for months.

The other runner has no coach, inadequate nutrition, worn-out shoes, and is seeing the course for the first time on race day.

When the better-prepared runner wins, we say they deserved the victory because they crossed the finish line first.

But did both runners have an equal opportunity to succeed?

Of course not.

The uncomfortable truth is that meritocracy often serves as a convenient narrative that allows privileged individuals to attribute their success entirely to personal effort while judging others who haven't achieved the same outcomes.

The Illusion of Equal Opportunity

The fundamental problem with meritocracy is that it assumes everyone starts from the same position.

It creates the illusion that we all begin the race of life at the same starting line, when reality tells a different story.

Daniel Markovits, a Yale Law professor, described meritocracy in his book The Meritocracy Trap as "a pretense, constructed to rationalize an unjust distribution of advantage."

Let's look at the evidence:

According to UBS's "Billionaire Ambitions Report 2023," of the 137 people who achieved billionaire status during the 12-month study period, 53 inherited $150.8 billion collectively—more than the $140.7 billion earned by the 84 new self-made billionaires in the same period.

In the Philippine House of Representatives, 80% of members belong to political dynasties according to the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism.

The truth is that merit doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Our opportunities, choices, and even our definition of "merit" itself are shaped by social contexts beyond our control.

"On a purely descriptive level, though, I think we do live in something like a meritocracy.

That is to say, the bulk of the reason why certain people have gotten ahead is that they have genuinely accomplished things.

On the other hand, the moral intuition behind meritocracy is not at all realized." — Daniel Markovits

Education: Not The Great Equalizer We Think It Is

We've embraced a comforting narrative about education as the great equalizer, that it transcends circumstances and opens the path to success for anyone willing to work hard.

But education itself is distributed unequally.

Consider this stark reality from the United States in 2016: approximately 15,000 students who took the SAT scored 750 or above (roughly the Ivy League median) and had parents with graduate degrees.

How many scored that high whose parents hadn't graduated high school? Just 32.

Japanese sociologist Satoshi Araki's research demonstrates that contemporary America—and arguably many other countries—functions not as a meritocracy but as a "credential society," where economic returns are linked more strongly to educational qualifications than to actual cognitive abilities.

The reality on the ground is even more telling: Some schools have better funding, larger campuses, more teachers, and enough classrooms to nurture each student's potential.

Others can barely keep the lights on.

Some families can provide personal drivers, tutoring services, and fully paid college tuition. Others work multiple jobs just to put food on the table.

Many brilliant people never get the chance to attend elite institutions, or any college at all.

When we use educational credentials as proxies for merit, we're often actually measuring privilege.

"Talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not." — Leila Janah

Not a Condemnation of Inheritance

To be clear: questioning the meritocracy myth isn't about condemning parents who give their children advantages.

It's natural and right to want the best for your children.

If you can provide better education, healthcare, connections, and opportunities for your children, of course you should provide them.

The issue arises when the beneficiaries of these advantages attribute their success solely to their own abilities without acknowledging the opportunities uniquely available to them through their family circumstances.

This creates a generation built on an incomplete understanding of success—one that might be deaf to the reality of inherent inequality.

And when these individuals become leaders in their respective fields, it can perpetuate policies and behaviors that fail to address systemic barriers facing others.

The most effective leaders are those who acknowledge their privileges while working to extend opportunity to others.

Recognizing advantage doesn't diminish achievement; it contextualizes it in a way that allows for greater empathy and more inclusive leadership, regardless of background.

Conclusion

The myth of meritocracy doesn't just misdiagnose the causes of success and failure—it actively harms society by justifying inequality and blaming the disadvantaged for their circumstances.

This doesn't mean abandoning the ideal of rewarding hard work and talent.

Rather, it means being critical with yourself before judging someone else's path.

It means celebrating your successes while recognizing the advantages that helped you along the way.

And it means striving for systems where merit truly matters.

The next time you're tempted to judge someone's lack of success as simply a failure of effort, pause. Consider what barriers they might face that you haven't encountered.

And if you've achieved success, consider what advantages helped you along the way.

Because we all want fairness, right? But achieving fairness requires recognizing that the playing field was never even to begin with.

And that acknowledgment begins with each of us examining the stories we tell ourselves about our own success and others' struggles.

Remember: Hard work matters. Talent matters.

But so does the starting line.