Meritocracy or Privilege

All along my life, till this day, I struggle with this notion of meritocracy vs privilege. In my early child hood, I was born in a lower middle class family of 1960’s Kolkata, India. My family was not rich, barely getting by but was very happy.  Earliest memory I have on this was at elementary school.  We had to write in pencils and thus erasers (which we called rubber) took an important place in our pencils boxes. One of my friends had scented erasers and I did not have one, it is just that my parents could not afford one. I was not jealous of my friend but nevertheless spurred myself to the fact that I will try to save some money and buy one. I never did and never could have as I did not have a pocket allowance. So when today when my son went to school, first thing I did was to find out and buy some scented erasers for him.  This is not an issue of meritocracy over privilege but just the fact that my friend’s parents were wealthier than mine.

In my teenage I use to play soccer both for my school and at the Kolkata soccer league.  Compared to my age, I was fairly adept at my game and loved it with furious passion. Playing for my school was not a big issue for me after all I was already in the top league of junior soccer in the country. In spite of all that the first time I tried to play for my school team my candidacy was rejected. I was surprised, so was my parents, friends and all who knew me and my game. No reason was given to me as to why I was dropped.  I still remember my school losing to a mediocre team while I was standing at the sidelines as a spectator, yes literally as a spectator with all my skills. Later I came to know that some wealthy parents kid was taken in in my position. I really felt sad that my school would rather loose, than apply the principles for meritocracy.  Little did that young teenager, that I was, knew about the intricacies of influence and wealth.

In my higher secondary school years, those months of intense academic competition to get into the professional schools of engineering and medicine I felt myself on the privileged bus as compared to many. I was living in the city where there good schools and colleges, and environment of positive peer pressure, could afford the books (though marginally) whereas millions of kids, around the country, lived in poverty, could afford neither. Then again , when contrasted with some others I was not privileged at all , not having affluent parents who could afford specialized academic coaching and so on. However, with consistent hard work and a little bit of smarts I did manage to get myself admitted to one of the leading engineering schools of India. It was there for the first time I discovered the Government of India’s affirmative action program , a program by which certain section of the societies (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes )  were given priority for admission to the professional schools.  ‘To uplift them from the years of suppression’ definitely a noble gesture, a privilege. I saw how it was abused where generations of very rich people sons and daughters holding certificates of Scheduled Castes/Tribes thriving and taking advantage of these dispensation, generation after generation, whereas the real poor languished in the labyrinth of hopelessness, opportunity less world and struggled. It made me sick to the core, I revolted, but kept quiet and with time learned to overlook it and carry on with my life.

College was a big arena, with vast conflicting forces, so its ups and downs were also considerable.  The gap between privileged and meritocracy also grew. I saw rich people sons and daughters with all their nurturing from early child hood blossoming in the prime of their youth. I saw them shine as millions of others who stood outside the gates of our college looked at the promise of a better life slowly but surely fading away from them. Even when compared to me, a young man from lower middle class family who somehow got into the same arena was jostled around, almost always loosing.  It was never about of meritocracy rather privilege.  They got the better job, better pay, better position, better career path, better and more authentic promise to live a comfortable, fruitful and meaningful life.  I also got something, not left empty handed; after all I was in the same college as they were, at the least, that far did my meritocracy take me to.

Further on in life, in the broader society, we all know how the idea of meritocracy has been bent, stampeded and diluted by the societies vested forces. If only anybody, who has exceptional abilities can really thrive and live upon meritocracy as a pillar of life. For all the lesser mortals like us, if we cry meritocracy then we can find ourselves shoved deeper into the perils of uncomfortable life and insecurity. Thus to stay and  survive where we are, we keep quiet, allowing a full reign by the privileged few to pile and hoard wealth, opportunity and everything that come with it. Not going into the details, I can rehash the definition and say that, success in life is also about meritocracy, but not a definite skill rather a good to have factor in a plethora of skills. 

Then again, looking back to the millions of others who stood outside my college gate, for whom well-heeled, consequential life slowly glided away because they were ordinary and were not privileged, I feel empty.  Is that the difference between first world and third world? Then again within the first world also the same exists. Is it like earth itself, with the deserts and tropical forest, the heat and the cold? Opposite extremes will always exist.  Only thing we, our human endeavor can do is to create and maintain the balance not surrendering to any of the extremities; the complete rich, or complete poverty; all privilege, or all meritocracies. Can that concept exist at all? Can society be built completely on meritocracy? What will it look like?  In human history there was none, even the early Greek Spartan society was not. It had some institutionalized privileges.

The very human (rather for life itself) nature of accumulating and giving everything to its progeny stand out against the stringency of meritocracy where fairness is singular. Then how can we build a society on those principles. We don’t know, but what we know from the evolution of human civilization and its political organizations, (from tribal leaders, to kings, emperors, presidents to modern democracy) is that the notion of fairness creates a more dynamic, stable society and in time builds a powerful country. Probably it is the only core difference between developed world and developing one in terms of implementation of the concept. US is more just in its dealings within intra-race, at least amongst the euro origin white Americans than say Europe are, in its dealings within its white citizens. In countries like India, China fairness, the rule of meritocracy is much less when equated with US and Europe but lot better than African countries. A step further, US at least theoretically, is trying to evolve this concept into inter-race relations, way ahead than any other country in the world. What about transfer of accumulated wealth to its children. Every developed country has some sort of scheme in place, in US it is much more intense as compared to Europe and to India , China . It is the time, it changes things towards better allocation of financial resources. Aristocracy on the other hand suffocates the redistribution channels and conserves the riches for one’s family and multiple generations. A rich man may give all his collected wealth to his not so smart children , who to his/her children in the process over time and generations, that wealth do not get re-distributed to meritocracy creating opportunities for a new generation to arise.  This is possible, that is why the existence of aristocracy has been denied in America. Reverse happened in pre-colonial India, China creating huge disparities between rich and poor leading to a weaker, fractious nation, and was subsequently gobbled up by the colonial powers of Europe.

I do not know whether it will be ever possible to build a perfect society based entirely on meritocracy, at the least we can try to evolve towards it.  While acknowledging the fundamental human nature of giving ‘ all that we have’ to our children , we are sure that it is only through meritocracy, as a society we can make our present life better and our future world ,that which our children will inherit , best.