Dangerous Fictions

Meritocracy is a ubiquitous concept. Writ large across the cultural, economic, and political terrain, the language of meritocracy is regularly spouted from the mouths of celebrities, CEOs, and politicians. The meritocratic mantra that anybody can “rise to the top,” so long as they possess the requisite talent and effort, is an enduring and powerful one. Despite escalating wealth inequalities, stalling social mobility, and almost one decade of punishing austerity measures, the cultural pull of meritocracy has not waned. For scholars concerned with the persistent structural inequalities and injustices that block upward social mobility, the insistence on individual aspiration, “grit,” and entrepreneurial self-fashioning is troubling and cruel (Mendick et al. 2018). Yet, as Jo Littler notes in Against Meritocracy: Culture, Power, and Myths of Mobility, despite being so “curiously formative” (15), this concept—and the ideological work that it does—has not been extensively interrogated. In this engaging and important book, Littler—a reader in the Department of Sociology at City University (London)—offers a corrective, providing an incisive account of meritocracy’s historical lineage, its shifting manifestations and articulations, and its fundamental relationship to neoliberal capitalism.The argument at the center of this book is that meritocracy has become “a key means of cultural legitimation” (2); operating as an alibi for growing inequalities and injustices through the vigorous assertion that those who are at the top deserve to be there. As Littler writes, “Meritocracy as a social system is a structural impossibility, and as a cultural discourse, it is a damaging fiction” (217). Taking an analytic approach informed by cultural studies (and in particular the work of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies [CCCS]), Littler examines how neoliberal meritocracy has come to be such a significant ideological engine of late capitalism, and how it is mobilized both to “disguise and gain consent for the economic inequalities unleashed by neoliberalism” (223; emphasis added). Exposing how the “cultural pull of meritocratic hope” (12) is detectable in mainstream political rhetoric as much as it is in reality television, Littler shows how it has found its representation in a diverse range of actors—from the idealized workers of Silicon Valley’s “new tech” economy and “salt of the earth” billionaires, to “rags to riches” reality TV winners.The book is structured into two parts. Part 1 (“Genealogies”) traces the term’s complex historical lineage across social theory and political discourse, and the varied metaphors and symbolism associated with meritocracy. This historical excavation of meritocracy is a vital contribution of the book, as Littler unpicks how a concept that was originally formulated to critique power and elitism mutated to become a tool of neoliberal governance and took on its highly individualized meaning. Littler also demonstrates the very slipperiness of the concept, providing a detailed account of how it has been drawn on and (re)articulated by leading political figures, from Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair and—more recently—to Theresa May and Donald Trump. The historical attentiveness in Littler’s analysis is important, as she carefully examines the distinct affective appeal that meritocracy holds across shifting political, economic, and cultural contexts.Part 2 (“Popular Parables”) then turns to a series of case studies to unpick the contemporary workings of neoliberal meritocracy. Here, Littler considers different media “types” or “figures” that are put to work as evidence of equality of opportunity and the possibilities for upward social mobility. A key strength of Littler’s analysis in this section of the book is how finely it is attuned to the role of class, gender, and “race” in the meanings and manifestations of neoliberal meritocracy. In chapter 4 (“Just like Us”), for instance, Littler demonstrates how “elites” (from superrich rentiers to members of the aristocracy) have increasingly drawn on the motifs and tropes of meritocracy; this includes emphasizing their ordinariness (wonderfully captured by Littler’s figure of the “normcore plutocrat”), their “graft,” and their performances of “giving back,” such as philanthropy. Through the constructions of elites as “just like us,” as “self-made,” or as benevolent and “kind parents,” the very machinations of capitalism and power on which their status and wealth is drawn become hidden from view. And, as Littler notes, these representations become particularly pronounced when the rich are under scrutiny.Chapter 5 (“#Damonsplaining”) turns to neoliberal meritocracy’s racialized logics and argues that neoliberal meritocracy relies on a postracial fantasy, a form of wishful thinking that obscures histories of racial oppression and their present-day manifestations. Littler’s case study here is the (social) media furor over an incident in which the celebratory image of the cultural industries (specifically the Hollywood film industry) as a “level playing field” was profoundly disrupted. In this instance, the white male Hollywood actor Matt Damon caused controversy when he dismissed a black female filmmaker’s comments about the importance of taking seriously racial diversity in film. Damon argued that diversity only matters (if at all) when it comes to on-screen representation rather than in terms of who produces culture, which—he claimed—is, and should be, determined solely by “merit.” Through a close reading of this event, Littler dissects and challenges the normative assumptions of merit as objective, value free, and as simply residing already in individuals. As Littler demonstrates, what is understood and recognized as merit is shaped by social context, a context that privileges and naturalizes whiteness, maleness, and—arguably—middle-classness. Here Littler provides an instructive set of tools to critique the processes of exclusion by which elite professions and institutions both recruit in their own image and mask these processes as “natural” and “just” (see also Ingram and Allen 2018; Lawler 2017; Puwar 2004).The sixth chapter (“Desperate Success”) turns more directly to the gendering of neoliberal meritocracy, through an analysis of the “mumpreneur”—the self-employed mother who creates a business out of her home (and often tied to her identity as a mother). Littler demonstrates how women (specifically middle-class women) figure as celebrated templates of the entrepreneurial “self-made” subject. Through her historical attentiveness Littler locates the emergence of these “popular parables” as responses to particular “crises.” In this case, the mumpreneur is offered as a pragmatic, individualized (and for most, out of reach) solution to challenging economic circumstances, including the decimation of welfare, rising costs of child care, insecure employment, and a devaluation of social reproductive labor. In response to these unmanageable conditions, women must turn to the self—becoming ever more entrepreneurial, resourceful, and “resilient” (see Gill and Orgad 2018).Arguably, in recent years this neoliberal meritocratic discourse has increasingly been questioned. Yet Littler argues that this “destabilisation has not led to a progressive movement toward a more egalitarian future” (212). Indeed, in the face of its potential undoing, the discourse of neoliberal meritocracy has become ever more resilient. Here Littler demonstrates how the language of social justice, equality, and identity politics—rooted in feminist and antiracist movements—has been reappropriated “in the service of a reinvigorated neoliberal settlement” (13). One of the most fruitful concepts the book offers is that of the “neoliberal justice narrative.” This captures how, rather than disavowing the existence of inequalities of gender, class, and “race,” such inequalities are now explicitly recognized and have become part of the neoliberal meritocracy discourse. However, the solutions to such problems remain highly individualized and entirely compatible with neoliberal capitalism. Here we may think of Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg’s calls for women to “lean in” to their careers—become more confident, practice self-care, and individually craft a greater work-life balance—while leaving the gendered (and classed and raced) power structures governing corporate culture entirely intact.It is vital to note that Littler’s account is not a totalizing and entirely pessimistic one. Throughout the book, Littler attends to the productive fractures and tensions whereby the neoliberal meritocratic discourse begins to unravel—albeit perhaps only momentarily. She also considers its alternatives. It is not a surprise, given the book’s title, that Littler is not interested in rescuing the concept. However, she proposes that some of its underlying ideas and affective appeal may be worth holding on to and rearticulating toward different ends, such as the notions of social protection, collective aspiration, mutuality, and social solidarity as opposed to competitive individualism and ruthless self-betterment. This book offers a valuable set of tools through which we can not only debunk neoliberal meritocracy but also begin to generate alternative ways to work toward a more egalitarian and progressive society that benefits the many and not just the few

Cultural Industries and Urban Development · History · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Youth Education and Societal Dynamics

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