Matthew Yglesias: Self-Made Men

Self-Made Men

Lately Max Sawicky and I have been disagreeing a lot, but we find common ground in the insight that equality of opportunity and the cult of the self-made man is an utter fraud both empirically and morally. Meritocracy is an appalling ideal. Being born with the inclination and ability to become financially successful is no more morally praiseworthy than being born with the inclination and ability to inherit a large fortune. It's chance all the way down either way. There are reasons to structure incentives so as to encourage a certain amount of hard work so as to increase overall prosperity, but this is a question of pragmatics not desert, and only worth doing if overall prosperity is being managed so as to cause widespread prosperity.

But while Max regards it as a dangerous fraud, I think it's a useful one. The key is that it's also empirically fraudulent. All good leftists ought to read Robert Nozick's attack from the right (UPDATE: Mark Kleiman points out that this is not, in fact, Nozick's argument in Anarchy, State, and Utopia. I think it's an argument someone else made in a paper Nozick assigned me to read in class -- will try and hunt down citation once I'm back in Washington) on equality of opportunity where he points out that this particular slope is a slippery one indeed. Once you realize that the poor are on unequal footing not only because poor people tend to attent ill-funded schools but also because poverty per se is a cause of ill-health and has deleterious consequences on emotional and cognitive development then equality of opportunity becomes a reason to pursue a measure of equality of outcome. What measure? Well, it all just depends how equal you want the opportunities to be. True equality of opportunity will require true equality of outcome. The latter is probably a bad idea and so is the former, but we could stand to go a good way further down the path than we've gone so far, so we may as well set our compasses to reach it for now. Rhetorically, framing all this as a question of opportunities is a useful way of selling the agenda to the public. So don't denounce equality of opportunity, just consistently note how much more needs to be done in terms of substantive equality in order to achieve it.

July 29, 2004 | Permalink

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» Self Made Man from Indefinite Articles
Matt Yglesias on the "myth" of the self-made man. What an interesting discussion. What a fascinating assertion - Meritocracy is an appalling ideal. It's just so, so deliciously arbitrary. Being [Read More]

Tracked on Jul 29, 2004 8:40:41 PM

Tracked on Jul 29, 2004 8:40:47 PM

» THE SELF-MADE MAN, CONT'D from MaxSpeak, You Listen!
More over at Matt's place. Without going into a philosophical reel, not my cup of tea, I do put moral weight on effort, initiative, industriousness, and sacrifice of leisure -- actions and faculties that spring from voluntary impulses. In this... [Read More]

Tracked on Jul 30, 2004 11:37:40 AM

» Equality of Opportunity from Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)
Matthew Yglesias and Max Sawicky are masticating the concept of equality of opportunity: Matthew Yglesias: Self-Made Men: Lately Max Sawicky and I have been disagreeing a lot, but we find common ground in the insight that equality of opportunity and th... [Read More]

Tracked on Jul 30, 2004 5:28:06 PM

» Meritocracy: The Appalling Ideal? from The Fly Bottle
Over at TCS I try to parry the thrust of this Matt Yglesias blog post. I argue that it is in fact possible to deserve what once has worked for, and that there are in fact self-made men who deserve... [Read More]

Tracked on Aug 11, 2004 11:26:11 AM

Tracked on Aug 11, 2004 11:48:50 AM

» Rambling Rant from She Who Will Be Obeyed!
I'm just gonna ramble on here, so feel free to completely ignore me. Today, I read about how many leftists despise any kind of meritocracy - they don't believe that one should get any more money for working hard than... [Read More]

Tracked on Aug 11, 2004 9:48:01 PM

» Meritocracy from Outside The Beltway ™
Fly Bottle's Will Wilkinson has an interesting piece in TCS entitled, "TCS: Tech Central Station - Meritocracy: The Appalling Ideal?" In it, he challenges the arguments of Matt Yglesias, not to mention John Rawls and others, that so-called "self-m... [Read More]

Tracked on Aug 12, 2004 8:42:18 AM

» Rawls against desert from Crooked Timber
Will Wilkinson has a column up at TechCentralStation on desert . This very fact is regrettable, since Wilkinson is smarter, saner, and more interesting that the average TCS columnist and hence will serve to cover-up — somewhat — the nakedne... [Read More]

Tracked on Aug 13, 2004 10:54:34 AM

Tracked on Aug 13, 2004 10:56:00 AM

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Tracked on Aug 13, 2004 11:55:44 AM

Tracked on Aug 14, 2004 5:46:22 AM

» Meritolicious from Majikthise
We can't talk about desert without specifying what we think successful people deserve. For example, I think that John Edwards deserves a lot of good things including my admiration, a huge TV, an the Vice Presidency. Even so, I don't think that Edwards ... [Read More]

Tracked on Aug 14, 2004 2:35:19 PM

Tracked on Aug 14, 2004 10:57:23 PM

» Gift Basket from Tom Jamme's Blog
Sweet Blessings, a new Christian-based online shop featuring cookie bouquets, candy bouquets and gift baskets, opens with a campaign to donate a portion of all profits to Habitat For Humanity. The devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, while not a... [Read More]

Tracked on Oct 6, 2005 9:16:03 PM

Comments

Financial success at least requires work. Financial inheritance does not.

Posted by: abf | Jul 29, 2004 3:35:31 PM

Brothers and sisters I have none;
But that man's father is my father's son.

Posted by: next big thing | Jul 29, 2004 4:14:57 PM

Hey, I agree with everything in this post. What's happening?

Posted by: abb1 | Jul 29, 2004 4:38:52 PM

The Republicans and conservatives howling for vouchers have made ther peculiar -- for them -- argument that the quality of the education a child receives should not depend on parental wealth. Therefore, less affluent families should receive vouchers so they can do what good Republicans do -- put their kids into private school. (And before I hear about the "hypocrisy" of affluent anti-voucher liberals who put their own kids into expensive private schools, where is the hypocrisy in: [a] providing a private education at your own, and not the taxpayers' expense; [b] cheerfully paying taxes to support a public school system they do not themselves use; and [c] not only not whining about it, but advocating even more taxes, mainly on affluent folks like themselves, to pay for improving the very schools they don't use?)
Whether vouchers are an effective means of implementing this new Republican/conservative principle is a matter I'm agnostic about. If they're serious about this principle, then I'll gladly sign up to be a Republican -- provided they are somewhat consistent and apply it to such things as health care, public safety, environmental quality, and the like.
I don't see anyone with a registration form rushing to sign me up.

Posted by: C.J.Colucci | Jul 29, 2004 4:43:13 PM

"It's chance all the way down either way...So don't denounce equality of opportunity, just consistently note how much more needs to be done in terms of substantive equality in order to achieve it."

Most people aren't going to accept this, since it would require that they drop their delusions about transcendent "free will". People like me aren't going to drop our (admittedly arbitrary) commitment to a liberal order. So I'm not sure whether this approach is going to work.

Posted by: Ryan | Jul 29, 2004 4:53:31 PM

LMao this guy get's more and more elitist every day.
Actually acheiving financial success is more noble because it requires effort. You have to ACHIEVE something. True, it requires luck, but it also requires that you bring about your own success.
If you're born rich it's totally the result of luck. If you're successful it's a mix of luck, skill and effort. No more rants about the evils of egalitarianism, please?

Posted by: Soul | Jul 29, 2004 5:06:57 PM

Ryan, it's clear from his post MY knows this isn't going to fly. That's why he supports strategic deployment of equality of opportunity, as conceptually problematic as the concept is.

I'm thoroughly with MY on this, including the limited usefulness of the myth of meritocracy. Excellent post.

Posted by: djw | Jul 29, 2004 5:15:22 PM

Well,
How equal do you want the opportunities to be?

Let me quote from an email that I wrote to some friends recently, discussing basically this same issue:

Look, if you really want to give each kid an equal playing field, then you need to take infants away from their parents and give them to state-employed trilingual guardians who all follow an identical script in raising the kids. Every child's home is inspected monthly by OSHA for health hazards. Each kid eats the same number of meals with the same calorie count and same nutritional distribution each day. Every household has a state-approved library with (at minimum) books by J.K. Rowling, Maurice Sendak, Chris van Allsburg, and Beverly Cleary. You must set up public schools in which every kid has the same number of classmates, with an identically trained teacher, identical curriculum, and identical per-pupil funding levels. Each kid gets state-funded soccer and piano tutors in the afternoons. Upon adolescence, each kid gets cosmetic surgery to fix a big nose, asymmetric eyes, or tiny breasts. Thin kids get free steroids. Disturbed kids get psychiatrists; goofoff kids get lifestyle coaches. A national Bureau of Admissions compiles data dossiers on each kid and submits every kid's info to every college. University tuition anywhere is free.

Posted by: next big thing | Jul 29, 2004 5:16:53 PM

"Look, if you really want to give each kid an equal playing field....(full army of strawmen)"

Or, in the spirit of next's comment, you could shut the little rugrats in a library at five, shove food under the door, and let the survivors out at 16
....
My conscience is bothering me a little over MY's post. An intentional deception?

Posted by: bob mcmanus | Jul 29, 2004 5:31:37 PM

If the structure of incentives devised to promote hard work for the sake of increasing general prosperity have any structural relation to the mechanisms of the distribution of that prosperity then it cannot be a simple matter of pragmatics as to whether or not specific incentive structures are adopted. You mention the prior nature of the policies or entities affecting management or distribution of that increased overall prosperity in determining whether or not these pragmatic excercises are even relevant. This explains in some ways the popularity of Nader, who sees a structural relationship which prohibits any meaningful effort to increase "widespread" prosperity insofar as he seeks to fundametally alter the nature of political particpation. To oppose the two parties to Nader is to accept the empirical independence of the government, recognizing its ability to have a significant effect on distribution, and seeing the problem as one of which party provides the policies that best promote "widespread" prosperity. It may not be a question of desert, but it certainly may become a question of justice once one is willing to drop the assumption of the independence of the government. Whether the government is in fact or in principle independent is of course signficiant in that failure in the former case does not make nonsense of claims that such independence is an ideal orientation. Hence, Nader rather than socialist or communists. The issue seems to boil down to a question about the relationship of the individual to the government in its ideal sense, without any real autonomy of a pragmatic dimension.

If we acknowledge that poverty per se is a cause of problems, this is more a methodological move than new knowledge. To attribute to a set of symptoms, in a sense, a cause with structural characteristcs, a sociological cause, engenders a sociological solution. (This is perhaps a reason so many are against Nader, who do not accept that voter reform will transform society in the needed ways.) And if the sociological situation is both cause of the problem, and some sociological fact is also the solution, then of course you want to replace the cause with its solution, but in the sense, relative to the individual, that you want to make the solution prior to the cause. In the end, your worry is about the formation of the individual, or in a political sense, its composition.

The illusion of the pragmatic dimension is, I think, shown by Nozik as you have paraphrased him. If you mean that the benefecience of the myth is based in its empirical fradulence in that there is not, in fact, any equality of opportunity (as necessarily determined by outcome), I think it is ill-advised as it leaves out of consideration issues of the structure of society and the individual place in it. That is, it conceals empirical realities by looking at them through the lens of future aspiration. It is ironic in that while doing so, it seems to be tryng to fulfill the leftist need for an objecitve, material basis on which to make claims about justice and policy.

If equality of opportunity is just a way of selling the agenda, what are the intellectual or moral or any other foundation of the agenda itself?

What you seem to be saying is that there is nothing morally admirable in achievement, in fact that there is no such thing as achievement in any but a private, or possibly intersubjective, sense. This would mean that all glory or greatness would have to be understood purely instrumentally, in cases of politics at least.

Posted by: William S | Jul 29, 2004 5:49:04 PM

This is fascinating. Matt, I seem to agree with you, which astonishes me. I would be interested in hearing more about this from the standpoint of "work ethic" and its glorification from sea to shining sea.

Posted by: Hippy Weirdo | Jul 29, 2004 5:52:27 PM

Matt's post is one of the most idiotic bits of cleverness I've seen in a while.

Posted by: tennin | Jul 29, 2004 5:58:44 PM

Among GOP grassroots type, a book that's making the grounds is "Rich Dad Poor Dad". Seeing an infomercial for it the other night brought it back to mind.

The point of the book, is because our society values investment rather than labour, to take as much advantage of this as possible. The fact that the GOP grassroots, instead of pushing an actual work ethic, pushes this tripe, should be pretty telling.

The lack of respect that comes towards labour in general (and I'm NOT talking unions, I'm talking work in general), is a major social morass, and needs to be corrected.

Posted by: Karmakin | Jul 29, 2004 6:05:29 PM

I've got this crazy hunch that hard work leads to success more often than laziness. Or is that not what this is about?

Posted by: Jacob | Jul 29, 2004 6:06:12 PM

Ironically, the denial of meaningfulness of public achievement is what causes this bind. If all is luck, why NOT pursue a policy of equal outcome? There would be no reason not to pursue such a policy. WHat prevents people from accpeting such a policy is a sense of the meaningfulness of achievement, and the realtion of acheievment to personal and political goals needs to be given some attention by liberals, or else conservatives are going to dominant this issue, as they are now. No one wants to hear that we should employ this as rehtoric as it is only meaningful for people who are actively employing it, and for the rest it is meaningful only if the ybelieve in a future state in which they will either also be in a position to make rhetorical statements on behalf of liberals or where they will actually have increased opportunity. So it just generates a group of people who all want to speak for the movement. Maybe THIS is the future of bloggers. :)

Posted by: William S | Jul 29, 2004 6:08:12 PM

Chance favors the prepared mind, but if preparedness is also a matter of chance...

Posted by: William S | Jul 29, 2004 6:12:43 PM

"Being born with the inclination and ability to become financially successful is no more morally praiseworthy than being born with the inclination and ability to inherit a large fortune."

Ok. So is that more or less praiseworthy than marrying into money?

Posted by: John Kerry | Jul 29, 2004 6:43:18 PM

Is there any way of avoiding the post-doc jargon that I'm encountering here and discussing this in clear, plain-spoken words?

Posted by: Shope N. Hauer | Jul 29, 2004 6:45:28 PM

Your point that equality of opportunity in America today is still quite lacking is a good one. But it's a hell of a leap to go from that to saying that there is no difference between someone who is born poor and dies rich, and someone who is born rich and stays that way.

You seem to be saying that someone who is born poor and becomes rich shouldn't be honored for that achievement because there is no real merit in it. Why not?

The wealthy classes have no shortage of people who do not have much if any social conscience, it's true. But it's a fallacy to assume that wealth per se renders one incapable of acting in a socially progessive manner or that the acquisition of wealth somehow makes one a less "good" person.

Do you truly think that the only praiseworth effort is that which is conducted for its moral, ethical, or spiritual benefits, not its financial ones?

Posted by: fiat lux | Jul 29, 2004 6:49:16 PM

But it's a fallacy to assume that wealth per se renders one incapable of acting in a socially progessive manner or that the acquisition of wealth somehow makes one a less "good" person.

That sentence seems to make sense. However, we have had plenty of time for empirical observation of the effect of wealth on human behavior, and it seems pretty safe to act on the assumption that wealth does have a demeaning effect.

Anyway, I'm not going to allow MY's conclusion, because I deny at least one of his premises. I do not believe that a "talent" for making money is necessarily genetic; and if it isn't genetic, then it is the product of education on some level (though it may not be formal). A couple more short logical jumps leads us to the communal nursery, which I doubt that MY, libertarian and social conservative that he is, would approve of.

Posted by: tcb or tcb3 | Jul 29, 2004 7:05:09 PM

Changing the subject, you're going to be on MTV?

Posted by: Mac Thomason | Jul 29, 2004 7:16:04 PM

Oh, yeah, on rereading it looks like I actually agree with MY. Sorry. I get so used to his having a right-wing outlook.

Posted by: tcb or tcb3 | Jul 29, 2004 7:30:48 PM

That "equality of opportunity," taken both literally and seriously, leads us into these kinds of discussions suggests that the phrase is a shorthand for something else that actually makles a good bit more sense.
A serious committment to literal equality of opportunity does seem to require equal material and social resources so we can all have equal chances to exploit our talents and get what we can earn. (And then we have to re-level the playing field every generation, which is not only difficult, but may severely reduce the incentives to generate walth, since our descendants get no share of it, and reduce the general prosperity.)
But we don't "earn" our talents either -- at least within limits. I suppose if Michael Jordan did nothing but watch TV and eat junk food, I could conceivably become a better basketball player than he would be through hard work, but with anything beyond a de minimis effort on his part, he'd soon wipe up the court with me. So how does "equality of opportunity" imply that unequal results are earned? Is luck all?
The only meaning for "equality of opportunity" that makes sense is that formal barriers to achievement be eliminated (hard, but not that hard) and that a reasonable degree of social and material resources be available so that those with roughly average talents and drive have a fair chance at a flourishing life, (a tall order), along with some decent provision for those that life has shortchanged in talent.
I think this roughly corresponds to what most people mean when they talk about "equality of opportunity" and mean something by it. It may mean a great deal more "equality of result" than they realize, but, recognized as a shorthand, it is not incoherent.

Posted by: C.J.Colucci | Jul 29, 2004 7:38:48 PM

Matt, you say:

Meritocracy may be an appalling ideal, but mistaking the particular idea that the ability to become wealthy is merit with the idea of meritocracy is just plain sloppy. "Meritocracy is an appalling ideal" has nothing to do with the thrust of your first paragraph, which seems to be that viewing skill and inclination to financial success as meritorious is an appalling ideal.

Posted by: cmdicely | Jul 29, 2004 7:40:38 PM

The problem is that the meritocratic sociodicy is in tension with efforts at increasing substantive equality. Of course equality of opportunity can be used strategically - the problem is that it is a two way street.

Meritocracy has the pernicious effect of legitimating current distributions of power and wealth, making it appear that the people in power achieved their positions through hard work and achievement. In reality, the human and social capital endowed on the wealthy is both unearned and unmeritorious.

Thomas Frank's One Market Under God does a good job of explaining the obstacles presented by this worldview. Particularly given the market deification omnipresent in the journals of the new economy, we may have reached a point of diminishing returns on the equal-opportunity, real-equality ploy.

Posted by: David Meyer | Jul 29, 2004 7:41:22 PM

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