Does meritocracy exist ?

“After all, if poor people want to improve their situation, they just need to work harder.” To those who believe this, they’ve probably missed the fact that most of the richest people in the world don’t grow their wealth through hard work alone but above all by exploiting as much as possible that of the lower-income classes.

Starting inequalities don’t just affect education, as my colleague explained. They also continue into working life. For example, 27% of workers’ children earn less than €1,000 per month, while 47% of executives’ children earn over €5,500 per month. It takes six generations to rise out of poverty.

On top of that, the richest and most influential people often have access to networks of contacts that provide opportunities others will never get—no matter how hard they work or how talented they are. This is called nepotism: family and personal connections play a huge role in getting jobs, internships, or promotions. A clear example is the “Nepo Babies” in Hollywood, like Lily-Rose Depp, daughter of Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis, who became famous from birth and then an actress largely thanks to her parents’ influence.

Even when someone does rise above their original class (being a trans class)—like Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street or to take the example of my opponent Elisa about Albert Camus, who came from an illiterate family and won the Nobel Prize for Literature—what made the difference? People often say it’s “willpower.” But this idea is a decoy because it hides the truth about what really allows a class mobility. “Where there's a will, there's a way” they say. But to want, you have to want something and this something born of other models that we have before our eyes. So we should rather replace this saying with: “Where, there's a way, there’s a will”

More generally, we need to let go of the idea that success is only about merit. Heritage, luck, and chance play a major role too.

Indeed, even if we become a trans class, it’s still not enough to achieve a life that matches their efforts because trying to buy property without an heritage is like joining a Monopoly game on the 10th round—you’re already too far behind. And work is clearly not enough to catch this major inequality.The more time passes, the more the wealth one holds has been inherited and not deserved. Bourdieu said that we live in a “society of heirs” and asked: “Is it normal for a child to be born with €4 million in assets? I don’t know. This is a question that must be asked.”

All of this leads to an obvious conclusion: Instead of basing our societies on merit and hard work, shouldn’t we focus on making sure everyone has a decent life, no matter their circumstances or choices?

...