Meritocratie en de erosie van zelfrespect

Abstract

Meritocracy and the erosion of self-respect. Michael Young predicted in 1958 the rise of meritocracy and its ultimate downfall brought about by all those whose self-respect had been undermined by the meritocratic system. The Netherlands are not a perfect meritocracy, but the influence of the meritocratic ideal is real enough. We list five strategies that are used to secure one's threatened self-respect: falling back on group identities; protesting that the meritocracy is only a false ideology; developing shortcuts to status and economic success without really 'meriting them'; contesting the rules of the meritocratic competition by introducing alternative conceptions of merit; and, finally, quitting the competition by concentrating on the internal rather than the external goals of a practice. On the basis of an evaluation of these strategies, we conclude that a society should not strive to be a perfect meritocracy, because that would drain important sources of self-respect that are currently still available.