A revolutionary new argument from eminent Yale Law professor Daniel Markovits attacking the
false promise of meritocracy It is an axiom of American life that advantage should be earned
through ability and effort. Even as the country divides itself at every turn the meritocratic
ideal - that social and economic rewards should follow achievement rather than breeding -
reigns supreme. Both Democrats and Republicans insistently repeat meritocratic notions.
Meritocracy cuts to the heart of who we are. It sustains the American dream. But what if both
up and down the social ladder meritocracy is a sham? Today meritocracy has become exactly
what it was conceived to resist: a mechanism for the concentration and dynastic transmission of
wealth and privilege across generations. Upward mobility has become a fantasy and the
embattled middle classes are now more likely to sink into the working poor than to rise into
the professional elite. At the same time meritocracy now ensnares even those who manage to
claw their way to the top requiring rich adults to work with crushing intensity exploiting
their expensive educations in order to extract a return. All this is not the result of
deviations or retreats from meritocracy but rather stems directly from meritocracy's successes.
This is the radical argument that Daniel Markovits prosecutes with rare force. Markovits is
well placed to expose the sham of meritocracy. Having spent his life at elite universities he
knows from the inside the corrosive system we are trapped within. Markovits also knows that if
we understand that meritocratic inequality produces near-universal harm we can cure it. When
The Meritocracy Trap reveals the inner workings of the meritocratic machine it also
illuminates the first steps outward towards a new world that might once again afford dignity
and prosperity to the American people.
