The Meritocracy Trap

by Daniel Markovits

  to Stanford alone: See Kai Oda and Edan Sneh, “College Acceptance Rates for PALY Students,” The Campanile, January 25, 2017, https://thecampanile.org/2017/01/25/collegeinfo/. These numbers have been checked for accuracy by comparing them to various online reports posted in student forums and other places that collect college admissions news and gossip.

  four to five times the national average: See Hanna Rosin, “The Silicon Valley Suicides: Why Are So Many Kids with Bright Prospects Killing Themselves in Palo Alto?,” Atlantic, December 2015, accessed July 18, 2018, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/12/the-silicon-valley-suicides/413140/. Hereafter cited as Rosin, “The Silicon Valley Suicides.”

  “like the cannon that goes off”: See Rosin, “The Silicon Valley Suicides.”

  higher rates of drug: See Suniya Luthar and Karen D’Avanzo, “Contextual Factors in Substance Use: A Study of Suburban and Inner-City Adolescents,” Development and Psychopathology 11, no. 4 (December 1999): 845–67.

  double or triple the national average: See Suniya Luthar, “The Culture of Affluence: Psychological Costs of Material Wealth,” Child Development 74, no. 6 (November–December 2003): 1582.

  In a recent study: See Vicki Abeles, “Is the Drive for Success Making Our Children Sick?,” New York Times, January 2, 2016, accessed November 18, 2018, www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/opinion/sunday/is-the-drive-for-success-making-our-children-sick.html. This study was performed by Stuart Slavin, of the Saint Louis University School of Medicine.

  College students, similarly: The absolute rate, moreover, is large: roughly 20 percent today versus roughly 10 percent in 2000. See American College Health Association, National College Health Assessment Institutional Data Report—Spring 2000 (Baltimore: American College Health Association, 2000), accessed July 18, 2018, www.acha-ncha.org/docs/ACHA-NCHA_Reference_Group_Report_Spring2000.pdf [inactive], and American College Health Association, National College Health Assessment Undergraduate Student Reference Group Data Report—Fall 2017 (Hanover, MD: American College Health Association, 2018), accessed July 18, 2018, www.acha-ncha.org/docs/NCHA-II_FALL_2017_REFERENCE_GROUP_DATA_REPORT_UNDERGRADS_ONLY.pdf [inactive].

  Systematic data on college students’ mental health are a surprisingly recent invention, so comparisons to periods before the millennium are difficult to draw. Nevertheless, individual colleges have reported steep increases in their students’ mental health troubles beginning earlier, in the mid-1990s. In 2002, Columbia reported that use of mental health services had increased 40 percent since the 1994–95 academic year. In November 2001, MIT reported a 50 percent increase in the use of mental health services between 1995 and 2000. And in 2002, SUNY at Purchase reported a 48 percent increase over the past three years. See Leslie Berger, “The Therapy Generation,” New York Times, January 13, 2002, accessed July 18, 2018, www.nytimes.com/2002/01/13/education/the-therapy-generation.html. Similarly, in 2002, the University of Cincinnati reported a 55 percent increase in the number of students seeking counseling over the previous six years and Xavier University reported a 40 percent increase in counseling visits compared to the previous year, with depression the most common problem. See Kristina Goetz, “Counseling Demand Overwhelms Colleges,” Cincinnati Enquirer, March 18, 2002, accessed July 18, 2018, http://enquirer.com/editions/2002/03/18/loc_counseling_demand.html. See also Martha Anne Kitzrow, “The Mental Health Needs of Today’s College Students: Challenges and Recommendations,” NASPA Journal 41, no. 1 (Fall 2003): 167–81, accessed July 18, 2018, www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2202/1949-6605.1310?journalCode=uarp19.

  “demoralization, alienation”: See University of Pennsylvania, Report of the Task Force on Student Psychological Health and Welfare (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2015), accessed July 18, 2018, https://almanac.upenn.edu/archive/volumes/v61/n23/pdf/task-force-psychological-health.pdf. See also Julie Scelfo, “Suicide on Campus and the Pressure of Perfection,” New York Times, July 27, 2015, accessed July 18, 2018, www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/education/edlife/stress-social-media-and-suicide-on-campus.html.

  A broader report: See Frank Bruni, “Rethinking College Admissions,” New York Times, January 19, 2016, accessed July 18, 2018, www.nytimes.com/2016/01/20/opinion/rethinking-college-admissions.html?mcubz=0.

  A junior banker: See Dawn Kopecki, “Young Bankers Fed Up with 90-Hour Weeks Move to Startups,” Bloomberg, May 9, 2014, accessed July 18, 2018, www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-05-09/young-bankers-fed-up-with-90-hour-weeks-move-to-startups.

  A former lawyer: Elie Mystal, “In Re the Passing of a Skadden Associate,” Above the Law, June 30, 2011, accessed July 18, 2018, https://abovethelaw.com/2011/06/in-re-the-passing-of-a-skadden-associate/?rf=1. Hereafter cited as Mystal, “In Re the Passing of a Skadden Associate.”

  commitment to her job: Mystal, “In Re the Passing of a Skadden Associate.”

  Bankers have in some cases: See Andrew Ross Sorkin, “Reflections on Stress and Long Hours on Wall Street,” New York Times, June 17, 2015, accessed November 18, 2018, www.nytimes.com/2015/06/02/business/dealbook/reflections-on-stress-and-long-hours-on-wall-street.html.

  NFL player Ronnie Lott’s: Tom Pedulla, “Giants’ Jason Pierre-Paul Should Be Able to Overcome Loss of Finger, Former Players Say,” New York Times, July 9, 2015, accessed July 18, 2018, www.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/sports/football/giants-jason-pierre-paul-should-be-able-to-overcome-loss-of-finger-former-players-say.html.

  “deliver results”: See Amazon, “Leadership Principles,” accessed July 18, 2018, www.amazon.jobs/principles. Hereafter cited as Amazon, “Leadership Principles.”

  “even when doing so” . . . “vocally self-critical”: See Amazon, “Leadership Principles.”

  “nearly every person”: Jodi Kantor and David Streitfeld, “Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace,” New York Times, August 15, 2015, accessed July 18, 2018, www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html. Hereafter cited as Kantor and Streitfeld, “Inside Amazon.”

  “Congratulations, you’re being promoted”: Kantor and Streitfeld, “Inside Amazon.”

  even banal: See, e.g., David Auerbach, “I’ve Worked Insanely Demanding Tech Jobs—and I Really Doubt Amazon Is Much Worse Than Google—or Even Microsoft,” Slate, August 17, 2015, accessed July 18, 2018, www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/08/amazon_abuse_of_white_collar_workers_i_worked_at_microsoft_and_google_and.html; Anne Weisberg, “The Workplace Culture That Flying Nannies Won’t Fix,” New York Times, August 24, 2015, accessed July 18, 2018, www.nytimes.com/2015/08/24/opinion/the-workplace-culture-that-flying-nannies-wont-fix.html?mcubz=0; “Depiction of Amazon Stirs a Debate About Work Culture,” New York Times, August 18, 2015, accessed July 18, 2018, www.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/technology/amazon-workplace-reactions-comments.html.

  not materially different: The language of worker competition changes across firms and over time. The particular phrases just rehearsed belong peculiarly to Amazon. However, American corporations constantly measure their managers against one another, at every level in their hierarchies, and promote the best while eliminating the worst. GE “ranked and yanked” managers in the 1990s. Herman Aguinis and Charles A. Pierce, “Enhancing the Relevance of Organizational Behavior by Embracing Performance Management Research,” Journal of Organizational Behavior 29, no. 1 (January 2008): 142. Microsoft employed “stack ranking” in the 2000s. See Margaret Heffernan, “Lose the Competition,” RSA Journal 160, no. 5558 (2014): 42. And Netflix employs the “keeper test.” See Netflix, “Netflix Culture,” accessed July 18, 2018, https://jobs.netflix.com/culture. And while particular implementations may fall into disrepute for being clumsy or creating perverse incentives (to avoid taking chances at work, or to undermine rather than support colleagues), the basic idea of sifting and winnowing elite workers according to measured performance necessarily endures.

  Burnout pervades the elite workplace: In a recent s
tudy of senior corporate leaders, nearly every subject diagnosed symptoms of burnout in her or his own life, and one-third described their burnout as extreme. See Leslie Kwoh, “When the CEO Burns Out: Job Fatigue Catches Up to Some Executives Amid Mounting Expectations,” Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2013, www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323687604578469124008524696. See also Tony Schwartz and Christine Porath, “Why You Hate Work,” New York Times, May 30, 2014, accessed July 18, 2018, www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/opinion/sunday/why-you-hate-work.html?mcubz=0&_r=0.

  “hit the wall” . . . “climb the wall”: Kantor and Streitfeld, “Inside Amazon.”

  “it’s hard to be”: Reed Abelson, “A Survey of Wall St. Finds Women Disheartened,” New York Times, July 26, 2001, accessed July 18, 2018, www.nytimes.com/2001/07/26/business/a-survey-of-wall-st-finds-women-disheartened.html.

  “Some people flame out”: Hochschild, The Time Bind, 56.

  An unhappy, even disconsolate: See, e.g., Brigid Schulte, Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2014).

  Roughly two-thirds: Hewlett and Luce, “Extreme Jobs.”

  “Vietnam moment”: See John Thornhill, “A Universal Basic Income Is an Old Idea with Modern Appeal,” Financial Times, March 14, 2016, accessed July 18, 2018, www.ft.com/content/a9758f1a-e9c0-11e5-888e-2eadd5fbc4a4.

  Does anyone actually want it?: Larry Kramer, “From the Dean,” Stanford Lawyer 77 (Fall 2007), accessed July 18, 2018, https://law.stanford.edu/stanford-lawyer/articles/from-the-dean-15/.

  Chapter Three: The Coming Class War

  sumptuary codes: See, e.g., Alan Hunt, Governance of the Consuming Passions: A History of Sumptuary Law (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996).

  mostly did not: The poor provided an exception to this rule, even at midcentury—and indeed more so at midcentury than they do today. For more on the recent history of poverty in America, see Chapter 4.

  Jerry Garcia settled in Palo Alto: See “The Grateful Dead: Making the Scene in Palo Alto,” Palo Alto History, accessed July 18, 2018, www.paloaltohistory.org/the-grateful-dead.php.

  Bob Seger played the Crow’s Nest: See, for instance, “Crow’s Nest East,” The Concert Database, accessed July 18, 2018, http://theconcertdatabase.com/venues/crows-nest-east.

  were similar in both towns: In 1960, the median family income in St. Clair Shores was only about one-seventh lower than in Palo Alto, and median house prices were only about one-third to one-half lower. For incomes, see U.S. Census Bureau, “General Social and Economic Characteristics: Michigan,” in 1960 Census of Population, 182, Table 33, www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1960/population-volume-1/37722966v1p24ch4.pdf, and U.S. Census Bureau, “General Social and Economic Characteristics: California,” in 1960 Census of Population, 224, Table 33, www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1960/population-volume-1/vol-01-06-f.pdf. For house prices, the one-third figure comes from the Census Bureau. See U.S. Census Bureau, “Michigan,” in 1960 Census of Housing, 6, Table 1, https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1960/housing-volume-1/41962442v1p5ch2.pdf, and U.S. Census Bureau, “California,” in 1960 Census of Housing, 5, Table 1, https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1960/housing-volume-1/41962442v1p2ch4.pdf. The one-half figure comes from comparing the median prices of the sixty-two houses in Palo Alto listed for sale in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1960 and the median prices of the sixty houses in St. Clair Shores listed for sale in the Detroit Free Press in 1960.

  places to shop: Brian Edwards, University Architecture (Milton Park: Taylor & Francis, 2014), 19.

  places to live in St. Clair Shores: “Groundbreaking Today: 750 Apartments in Shores Project,” Detroit Free Press, July 31, 1962, A3, and Proctor Homer Warren, Inc., “With Every Great Apartment and Sky House, We’ll Throw in a Great Lake Free,” advertisement, Detroit Free Press, November 19, 1970.

  converged between 1950 and 1970: Bill Bishop, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008), 130. Hereafter cited as Bishop, The Big Sort. See also Christopher Berry and Edward Glaeser, “The Divergence of Human Capital Levels Across Cities,” Papers in Regional Science 84, no. 3 (2005): 407–44, accessed July 26, 2018, www.nber.org/papers/w11617. Hereafter cited as Berry and Glaeser, “The Divergence of Human Capital.”

  even within cities: See also Berry and Glaeser, “The Divergence of Human Capital.”

  Americans bought 90 percent: In 1965, Americans bought 90.7 percent of their cars from these three companies. See Figure B: Percent of total U.S. auto industry market share, by automaker, 1961–2014, in Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, Dan Brooks, and Martin Mulloy, The Decline and Resurgence of the U.S. Auto Industry (Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 2015), accessed July 18, 2018, www.epi.org/publication/the-decline-and-resurgence-of-the-u-s-auto-industry/. General Motors’ Corvette sold for about $3,000 in 1956. See Richard Prince, Corvette Buyers Guide, 1953–1967 (Minneapolis: Motorbooks International, 2002), 39. See also “How Much Cars Cost in the 60s,” The People History, accessed October 7, 2018, www.thepeoplehistory.com/60scars.html.

  half of their appliances: See Sears, “Kenmore Chronology,” accessed January 29, 2019, www.searsarchives.com/brands/detail/kenmore/1950s.htm; Chris Isidore, “Here’s What’s Killing Sears,” CNN, February 12, 2018, accessed January 29, 2019, https://money.cnn.com/2018/02/12/news/companies/sears-downfall/index.html.

  a third of their watches: See Amy Glasmeier, Manufacturing Time: Global Competition in the Watch Industry, 1795–2000 (New York: Guilford Press, 2000), 189–192; “Corporations: Watches for an Impulse,” Time, March 15, 1963, accessed November 19, 2018, http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,870225,00.html; Timex, “Every Third Watch Sold Is a Timex,” advertisement, Life, December 7, 1959.

  “they have more money”: “Let me tell you about the very rich,” Fitzgerald wrote in 1924. “They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think they are better than we are. They are different.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Rich Boy,” in The Rich Boy (London: Hesperus Press Limited, 2003), 3. Twelve years later, Hemingway published “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” in Esquire. “The rich were dull and they drank too much, or they played too much backgammon. They were dull and they were repetitious. He remembered poor Scott Fitzgerald and his romantic awe of them and how he had started a story once that began, ‘The very rich are different from you and me.’ And how someone had said to Scott, Yes, they have more money. But that was not humorous to Scott. He thought they were a special glamorous race and when he found out they weren’t it wrecked him just as much as any other thing that wrecked him.” Ernest Hemingway, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” Esquire, August 1936, 200.

  incomes in the middle and bottom quintiles have converged: See Chapter 4.

  The rich and the rest now marry: See Murray, Coming Apart, 62. See also Christine Schwartz and Robert Mare, “Trends in Educational Assortative Marriage from 1940 to 2003,” Demography 42, no. 4 (November 2005): 629–30 (reporting that both partners had sixteen or more years of schooling in 3.95 percent of married couples in 1960 and in 18.02 percent of married couples in 2000).

  The rich and the rest parent: See Chapter 5.

  fitness is now a status symbol: See “Spin to Separate: Sweating on Purpose Is Becoming an Elite Phenomenon,” The Economist, August 1, 2015, accessed July 19, 2018, www.economist.com/news/united-states/21660170-sweating-purpose-becoming-elite-phenomenon-spin-separate.

  The rich and the rest worship: See Caryle Murphy, “Th
e Most and Least Educated U.S. Religious Groups,” Pew Research Center, November 4, 2016, accessed July 19, 2018, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/04/the-most-and-least-educated-u-s-religious-groups/. Hereafter cited as Murphy, “The Most and Least Educated U.S. Religious Groups.” David Masci, “How Income Varies Among U.S. Religious Groups,” Pew Research Center, October 11, 2016, accessed July 19, 2018, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/11/how-income-varies-among-u-s-religious-groups/. Hereafter cited as Masci, “How Income Varies Among U.S. Religious Groups.”

  Google data on searches: See David Leonhardt, “In One America, Guns and Diet. In the Other, Cameras and ‘Zoolander,’” New York Times, August 18, 2014, accessed July 19, 2018, www.nytimes.com/2014/08/19/upshot/inequality-and-web-search-trends.html.

  roughly twenty times as high: Median household incomes in Palo Alto and St. Clair Shores, for the period between 2012 and 2016, were $137,043 and $54,590 respectively. See U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates 2012–2016, Selected Economic Characteristics, St. Clair Shores city, Michigan, and Palo Alto city, California, accessed July 19, 2018, https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=CF. According to the Census Bureau, median house prices in Palo Alto and St. Clair Shores, for the period between 2012 and 2016, were $1,702,100 and $102,400 respectively. U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates 2012–2016, Selected Housing Characteristics, St. Clair Shores city, Michigan, and Palo Alto city, California, accessed July 19, 2018, https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=CF. According to Zillow, average home values in Palo Alto and St. Clair Shores in July 2018 were $2,709,700 and $132,000 respectively. See “Palo Alto Real Estate,” Zillow, accessed July 19, 2018, www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Palo-Alto-CA/26374_rid/37.375477,-121.949273,37.053944,-122.191315_rect/11_zm/, and “St. Clair Shores Real Estate,” Zillow, accessed July 19, 2018, www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Palo-Alto-CA/26374_rid/37.375477,-121.949273,37.053944,-122.191315_rect/11_zm/. And according to Realtor, the median prices of homes for sale in Palo Alto and St. Clair Shores in July 2018 were $2,400,000 and $150,000 respectively. See “Palo Alto, CA Real Estate & Homes for Sale,” Realtor.com, accessed July 19, 2018, www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Palo-Alto_CA, and “St. Clair Shores, MI Real Estate & Homes for Sale,” Realtor.com, accessed July 19, 2018, www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Saint-Clair-Shores_MI.