Myths of merit in an unequal society

When it comes to social mobility, we may be looking ahead – but are we hitting the mark?

“You can make it if you try,” said Barack Obama. But as American political philosopher Michael Sandel has observed, one problem with this meritocratic narrative is that people actually believe it, despite all evidence to the contrary. Those who have already ‘made it’ have a particular interest in believing it, because they can then justify their material success in terms of merit, talent and hard work. It also allows them to feel less guilty about people who have not done so well, because if they had the chance to succeed, yet still failed, surely that is their own doing?

Broadening horizons

The social mobility narrative is often used by politicians to paper over the cracks. They use it to justify a manifestly unequal society, claiming inequalities are somehow fair because they owe more to individual differences than to the broader structural forces – forces that propel some people forward while holding others back.

By speaking about merit and social mobility in the same breath, without acknowledging the influence of structural factors, politicians have gaslit the public and sown the seeds of a populist revolt. Unequal opportunities have bled into unequal economic outcomes, which in turn have fed a grinding sense of unfairness, an inequality of status and respect (in which people with less money are seen as somehow deserving of their situation) and an inequality of influence over politics.

Our overly individualistic way of thinking about the world doesn’t help. As polling by the Fairness Foundation in 2023 showed, we tend to underestimate the role of luck (in the broader sense) in life. Not just falling under a bus or winning the lottery, but being born into great wealth or grinding poverty. Luck in terms of circumstances beyond our control.

Social mobility can be a useful concept but, like luck, is best thought of in broader terms. A narrow conception of social mobility that focuses on ‘rags to riches’ stories, and opening up access to elite universities and careers, doesn’t work. We need to think about providing everyone with opportunities, not just a small number of exceptionally talented people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Compensating for barriers to opportunity is futile when, thanks to high levels of inequality, those barriers grow too high. Trying to do so forces these institutions to contort in ways that open them up to criticism from the right – hence the pushback against Diversity, Equity and Inclusion that is blowing in from the US.

“Social mobility can be a useful concept but… is best thought of in broader terms”

Deep opportunity

Instead, we can think about social mobility in broader terms of opportunity for everyone (what we call deep opportunity), not just the most brilliant among us, and which doesn’t require people to move across the country to realise their potential. Opportunity that rebuilds our tattered social contract so that everyone can enjoy a decent quality of life.

Realising this more ambitious objective requires dramatic reductions in socioeconomic inequality. As we showed in our Wealth Gap Risk Register, the absolute wealth gap between the richest and poorest in Britain increased by 50% between 2011 and 2019; this is damaging our economy, our society, our democracy and our environment, and is a fundamental barrier to opportunity as well as to economic growth. Reversing these negative feedback loops will require us to redistribute wealth, to distribute it more broadly at source, and to reduce the impacts of wealth inequality on people’s life chances and outcomes.

Unfortunately, we are unlikely to see our political leaders taking the tough decisions needed without tackling the broken incentives that litter our political system, not least its chronic short-termism. The UK now has five overarching ‘missions’ to orientate policymaking across government and to look 10 years into the future. This is good, but 10 years is not far enough, especially in the context of the climate crisis. We need to be looking 50 years ahead, or more.

A new contract

Paradoxically, the more we talk about social mobility, with its implied promise of a better future, the more we are distracted from genuinely thinking and acting in the long term, and in the interests of future generations. It is beyond time for our political leaders to build a new intergenerational social contract.

Our recent report, Mission to the Future, examines why long-termism in politics is necessary for taking action on inequality (and for making significant, wide-ranging progress), what lies in its way and how to overcome these barriers. When it comes to solutions, we can look at the Welsh government’s Wellbeing of Future Generations Act for inspiration, and the United Nations’ Declaration on Future Generations. Setting up a Parliamentary Committee for Future Generations and integrating intergenerational assessments into legislative review, as recommended by the House of Commons Liaison Committee, would be a good first step.

We can all play a part in bringing about these changes. I ask you to echo these calls for a politics that genuinely grapples with long-term challenges. I also invite you to join us in challenging the pervasive and corrosive myth that we live in a meritocracy, by publicly acknowledging the role that luck has played in each of our lives, for better or for worse.