Summary of Jo Littler's Against Meritocracy

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Book Preview:#1 Meritocracy is a system in which advancement is based on individual ability or achievement.

#2 Meritocracy is a social system based on individual ability and achievement. It has many advantages, but it’s also been called a neoliberal meritocracy.

#3 The discourse of neoliberal meritocracy is not just found in the West, but has also expanded to other countries such as Singapore, where it has been used to help establish economic inequality.

#4 In the Western world, the notion of social mobility has been extremely compatible with capitalism for the past few centuries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Feb 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669346050

IRB Media

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Insights on Jo Littler's Against Meritocracy

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Meritocracy is a system in which advancement is based on individual ability or achievement.

#2

Meritocracy is a social system based on individual ability and achievement. It has many advantages, but it’s also been called a neoliberal meritocracy.

#3

The discourse of neoliberal meritocracy is not just found in the West, but has also expanded to other countries such as Singapore, where it has been used to help establish economic inequality.

#4

In the Western world, the notion of social mobility has been extremely compatible with capitalism for the past few centuries.

#5

The Snakes and Ladders board game is a good example of how the ladder of opportunity has been used historically to represent individual people climbing up it. The game was used to teach Christian moral lessons to British children in the nineteenth century.

#6

The phrase level playing field is often used to describe a world where everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed. However, in reality, economic, social, and education inequalities are vast and growing.

#7

In the 1950s, the term meritocracy was coined to describe a hypothetical situation in which a society was run according to the principles of meritocracy. However, this idea has been turned upside down in recent times, as meritocracy has been used to promote neoliberalism and the stratification of society.

#8

social stratification -> social inequality -> social stratification. He argues that the key to the solution is to ‘abolish the four scales, and replace them by a single scale of social value’ (Fox 1956: 12). This would be a society in which there would be no property, no unequal education, no unequal jobs, no unequal incomes, and no inequality of power.

#9

The idea of a meritocracy is that those who are talented, intelligent, and hardworking should succeed. But that’s not