Slate Money: "The Meritocracy Trap"

Date: September 14, 2019
Host: Felix Salmon (Axios)
Co-host: Emily Peck (HuffPost)
Guest: Daniel Markovits (Yale Law School, author of The Meritocracy Trap)

Episode Overview

This episode centers on Daniel Markovits’s book, The Meritocracy Trap, and the societal and economic effects of meritocratic ideals in the United States. The conversation unpacks how elite education and the pursuit of “merit” contribute to widening inequality, create unprecedented pressures on both winners and losers of the system, reinforce old forms of aristocracy, and affect everything from social mobility to academic funding and workplace structure. The hosts also discuss the MIT Media Lab’s fundraising scandal, gender dynamics in academia, and financial markets’ reactions to Trump’s tweets.

1. The Core Argument of The Meritocracy Trap

[00:10–11:28]

• Meritocracy as Masked Aristocracy

  • Felix Salmon introduces Daniel Markovits, whose commencement speech at Yale was transformed into The Meritocracy Trap.
  • Key point: Markovits argues that "meritocracy" is less about innate talent or effort and far more about cash and privilege.

    “If you throw a huge amount of money and privilege at [children], they will become what you call superordinate fortunate workers and they will wind up running the world.” — Felix [01:29]

  • Rich families buy extensive educational advantages, perpetuating cycles of elite status.

• Education: Real, Expensive, and Bought

  • Markovits: “Elite schools…now do...all the latest education science research to direct the way they teach their children…And you get that result: the gap on the SAT between kids whose parents make over $200,000 a year and kids whose parents have the median household income is now twice as big as the gap…between median household kids and kids at the poverty threshold.” [03:04]
  • Emily: “We call it a meritocracy, but it’s really just a mask for the aristocracy. You basically need money to succeed and you have to work hard…" [04:04]

• Two Claims: Education Works and Can Be Bought

  • Markovits: “If education is real and can be bought, and some people are rich and buy more of it, then a system that measures actual achievement will block equality of opportunity…” [04:40]

2. Impact of Meritocracy on Winners and Losers

[05:18–10:09]

• Who Loses in Meritocracy?

  • The excluded: Middle and working class children are left out due to inability to buy top-tier education.
  • Psychological harm: The narrative equates lack of access with individual failure.

• Who Wins, and at What Cost?

  • The elite: Those with access to high-quality, expensive education attain top jobs but pay a price in well-being.

    “To live a life in which at every moment your own person, your skills, your effort, your training is your biggest asset…it’s sort of to manage yourself almost like you’re a business…That’s not a way that a human being lives a flourishing life.” — Markovits [06:06]

  • Elite professionals (lawyers, bankers, consultants) work vastly more demanding hours than prior generations [07:37].

• On Social Mobility

  • “We have less social mobility in this country than in other rich countries in the world…It hurts people by excluding them [and] by insulting them…” — Markovits [05:38]

3. Hollowing Out of Middle Class Work and the Role of Unions

[10:09–17:32]

• Superordinate vs. Subordinate Workers

  • The "superordinate" class: Highly trained, well-paid, but often alienated elite workers.
  • Subordinate roles: Increasingly menial, with less discretion and skill.

• Perceived vs. Actual Effort

  • Markovits: “We've created…I think the first society in human history in which in fact those who are in the bottom half of the income distribution don't work as hard as those at [the] top…the problem we have is that we've constructed an economy in which that group doesn't have enough to do productively and so they don't have enough work.” [11:28]

• The Vanishing of Good Middle-Class Jobs

  • Decline of unions: Led to worse pay for routine jobs and less power.
  • Markovits: “Unions got lifetime employment...training...some measure of worker control over the local production process.” [14:24]

• Illustrative Anecdotes

  • Emily contrasts skilled but poorly paid Apple Store employees with the less knowledgeable, similarly paid Kmart staff [15:55].
  • Salmon: “Apple Store workers get paid…it’s amazing how little…these geniuses are making like $17 now.” [16:34]

4. Education, Meritocracy, and Attitudes of the Elite

[17:45–19:29]

• Forming Elitist Attitudes
  • Meritocracy instills a sense of over-credit among the winners and a sneer toward non-elite peers.

    “The elites have constructed this sort of idealized world for themselves, which puts them in bad faith with respect to… the human condition.” — Markovits [18:23]

5. The MIT Media Lab, Epstein, and Academic Funding

[19:34–34:46]

• Overview:

  • Discussion of the MIT Media Lab’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein, and the broader implications of private money in academia.

• Secret (Not Anonymous) Donations

  • Salmon pushes for a shift in vocabulary:

    “We stop using the word anonymous for these donations and start using the word secret.” [24:19]

• How American Academic Funding is Distorted

  • Markovits: “The way in which American universities…fund themselves through these kinds of donations…dramatically distorts what American scholars work on and what kind of research universities produce…that doesn't happen in lots of other rich countries.” [25:00]
  • Example: The dominance of neoliberal economics in the U.S. due, in part, to academic funding sources.

• Gender Dynamics

  • Emily notes money and power being concentrated in male-dominated circles: "Those academics in the Epstein case…it's all men. It's all men at the dinner." [28:13]
  • Markovits stresses structural impact: “If you have money…by finance, which is overwhelmingly male…Of course female professors are going to be substantially damaged by this.” [29:55]

• MIT Media Lab’s Purpose and Legacy

  • Exchanges on the ambiguous purpose and output of the Media Lab, contrasting it with MIT’s legendary, freeform Building 20. [33:02]

6. The “Volfefe Index”: Trump, Twitter, and Market Volatility

[35:13–43:00]

• Financial Markets and Tweets

  • Introduction of the "Volfefe index": JP Morgan analyzed 4,000 Trump tweets and found 146 moved the market, especially those mentioning China. [36:12]
  • Salmon: “The stock market has actually been quite good at ignoring Trump all along. The markets that are moving here are the markets and bond markets…” [38:36]

• On Market Volatility

  • Markovits asks: “These move the market in the very short term, and then there's a reversion…?” [37:47]
  • Salmon: "It's a, you know, first derivative thing…if Donald Trump is contributing to that volatility, that is something you can trade." [38:10]

7. Numbers Round: Notable Metrics Shared

[43:07–48:22]

• Gender and Monopoly:

  • Emily: Women now receive $240 for passing “Go” in Hasbro’s Ms. Monopoly—yet Hasbro’s C-suite is only 12.5% women. [43:07]

• Street Art Vandalism:

  • Felix: A 6-inch gash was cut into the Wall Street Bull. Repair cost: $150,000. [44:13]

• Poverty in the U.S.:

  • Daniel Markovits: “11.8%” — the current U.S. poverty rate, near historic lows, but still meaning 38 million people, the population of California, live in poverty. [47:05]
  • On the legacy of how poverty is measured:

    “We have the poverty threshold and the way of measuring poverty…on account of a woman named Molly Orshansky, who was an economist in the Department of Agriculture…” — Markovits [47:42]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the correlation between education, wealth, and opportunity:

  “A system that measures actual achievement will block equality of opportunity because only the rich can get the thing you need to have in order actually to achieve.” — Markovits [04:40]

• On elite worker alienation:

  “You’re the manager of yourself as a business. And that’s not a way that a human being lives a flourishing life.” — Markovits [06:06]

• On academic funding and donor influence:

  “Harvard University, Yale University will sell a bathroom.” — Markovits [25:55]

• On the gendered nature of academic power-brokering:

  “If you have money being given by finance, which is overwhelmingly male dominated…of course female professors are going to be substantially damaged by this.” — Markovits [29:55]

• On the difference between American and European funding norms:

  "[A German provost] said, of course…I said we have to give the money back. That’s totally unethical. How could the donor think he has anything to say about this?" — Markovits [25:16]

Key Timestamps

• Intro/Overview of Meritocracy Trap: 00:10–04:40
• Effects for Excluded & Winners: 05:18–10:09
• On Work, Unions, Middle Class: 10:09–17:32
• Meritocracy and Attitude Formation: 17:45–19:29
• MIT Media Lab & Epstein Scandal: 19:34–34:46
• Trump, the Volfefe Index, and Market Volatility: 35:13–43:00
• Numbers Round: 43:07–48:22

This summary provides a comprehensive snapshot of the episode’s important arguments, memorable exchanges, and expert insights on the state and consequences of American meritocracy, elite networks, and social mobility, as well as the intersection of money, academia, and politics.