On The Volokh Conspiracy, Thomas Mulligan has published a comparison of meritocracy vs libertarianism which sparked a thought. Now, I did wonder if his characterization of libertarianism as it is currently is accurate, because I quit reading libertarian materials (mostly REASON Magazine) several years ago, but I guess I’m willing to stipulate it for the moment:
The American Dream is a meritocratic ideal. Our national ethos is that no one should be guaranteed prosperity, but all citizens should have an equal opportunity to pursue it through their merit. What a person can become should turn only on his or her intelligence, effort, skill, and the like—and not arbitrary features, like race or parental wealth. That way, if a social hierarchy emerges, it is a “natural aristocracy”—as Thomas Jefferson put it—filled by “virtue and talents”, not “wealth and birth”.
This description of a just economy appeals to Americans across ideological lines. And it is, by my lights, correct.
But it is not a libertarian ideal. If we followed libertarian principles and implemented libertarian policies, we would create a very different economy than the one so many Americans desire. We would create an economy in which merit was not taken seriously.
Consider the lamentable state of opportunity in the United States today. Our economic mobility is among the worst in the developed world. Children who are born rich stay rich. Others, no matter their merits, cannot escape the trap of poverty. Note that this is not because genetics determine economic outcomes; they do not. Instead, birth into wealth provides social advantages, like access to elite education, as well as brute inheritance. The wealthiest 1% of American households inherited, on average, $3 million. This is no coincidence.
Unequal opportunity is incompatible with meritocracy. Whether you are rich or poor ought to turn on your merits—not your parents’ merits, or their parents’ merits.
There’s an ambiguous implication that we’re currently libertarian, which would either outrage the libertarians, or kill them off in gouts of laughter, but that’s not really here nor there – and Thomas elsewhere suggests that we’re not libertarian in any case. For me, though, the insight is the assertion that our economic mobility is very poor, and is tied to inherited wealth.
I hadn’t heard the claim concerning the American economic mobility before; I know that years before the libertarians had claimed we had high economic mobility. Have things changed? Thomas provides a link to what appears to be an academic book entited Unequal Chances: Family Background and Economic Success, but dating from 2005 – so I have to wonder if this is still accurate.
But I appreciate his theoretical hand-waving a bit more. After all, libertarians basically want to reject just about all regulation in the belief that the marketplace will self-regulate where necessary. They spend a lot of time making that argument. So connecting the inheritance of wealth with stultification is quite interesting. It’s unfortunate that his source of statistics that he would use to bulwark his position appears to be somewhat suspect – and is vulnerable to arguments that things would be better without all those regulations.
Given all that, if we accept that we should be running a meritocracy rather than libertarianism, then I’m a little puzzled that Thomas doesn’t take this to its logical conclusion:
Outlaw inheritance completely.
Sounds insane, doesn’t it? As someone who’s an independent and probably best classed as a mainstreamer, it sounds a bit insane. I’d never considered that position until just now, although I’ve heard it advocated from time to time, most interestingly from someone whose name I don’t recall, but was an investor on the level of George Soros – but this was 25 years ago or more. At the time, I wrote it off as someone who didn’t want to deal with the politics and logistics of the Last Will, but maybe he had a good point after all.
Of course, then you have to ask where the estates of folks should go after liquidation? A lot of people will pee their pants at the thought of the gooberment getting it, although it might be a way to reduce income taxes. But if we’re going to be a true meritocracy, then we’d better be ready to help out new adults as well – because being born into wealth isn’t the same as inheriting it – you get advantages from that as well. And Thomas addresses this with conventional remedies, to which I have nothing to add.
But it does boggle the mind a bit. Libertarians do like to see themselves as people who pull themselves up by their bootstraps – but those with inheritances maybe didn’t have to pull so hard, did they? Perhaps a more formal approach to meritocracy might have, ah, merit?
