You are on page 1of 4

Cultural Studies

ISSN: 0950-2386 (Print) 1466-4348 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcus20

Neoliberal meritocracy

Catherine Rottenberg

To cite this article: Catherine Rottenberg (2018): Neoliberal meritocracy, Cultural Studies, DOI:
10.1080/09502386.2018.1435703

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2018.1435703

Published online: 16 Feb 2018.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 61

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at


http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rcus20
CULTURAL STUDIES, 2018

BOOK REVIEW

Neoliberal meritocracy
Against meritocracy: culture, power and myths of mobility, by Jo
Littler, London, Routledge, 2017, 236 pp., £26.99 (cloth), £110.00
(hardcover), ISBN: 1138889555

The idea of meritocracy has a long history in the U.S. cultural imagination. The
American Dream has been built on the notion that effort and talent are enough
to ensure upward mobility. In the U.K., the belief in the possibility of social mobility
has a somewhat shorter history, emerging most forcibly in the wake of the Second
World War with the progressive Labour government of Clement Attlee. On the
face of it, meritocracy sounds pretty good: it presents itself as a fundamentally
equitable regime type, providing everyone with the same opportunity to climb
the economic, social and political ladder.
However, in her insightful book, Against meritocracy: culture, power and myths
of mobility, cultural critic Jo Littler goes far beyond the more well-known critiques
of meritocracy, such as the assumption that a level playing field exists or that
talent is unambiguous and universally recognizable. Instead, Littler offers
a systematic and brilliant analysis of the kind of cultural work that the incorpor-
ation of meritocratic ideals has carried out in the Anglo-American world, particu-
larly since the 1980s. In its modern permutation, meritocracy has become
neoliberalism’s handmaiden, she claims, facilitating the atomization of individuals
while extending competition and entrepreneurial behaviour into ‘the nooks and
crannies of everyday life’ (p. 2). This, in turn, has resulted in intensified
stratification and inequality.
To make these arguments, Littler divides the book into two. The first half offers
a detailed investigation of the contemporary genealogies of meritocracy, laying
bare how the term’s valence has shifted dramatically in social theory as well as
in political discourse over the past half century. The second half then provides
readers with a number of case studies taken from popular culture, which both
underscore how deeply ingrained the meritocratic myth of social mobility has
become while, simultaneously and paradoxically, providing key moments in
which the myth is challenged on a number of fronts. More specifically, the case
studies demonstrate how any disadvantage due to race, gender and class is dis-
articulated by meritocratic discourse on the one hand, and, yet, on the other,
these categories continue to disrupt any attempt to tell seamless narratives
about progress.
For many readers, it might come as a surprise to learn that meritocracy – as
opposed to merit – has a relatively short lexiconic life in English, even as the
more general concept can be traced back to Ancient Athens and Imperial
China. Indeed, in the first section of the book, Littler discloses that the term first
made its appearance in English in 1956, invoked pejoratively by socialist scholar
2 BOOK REVIEW

Alan Fox, who was deeply critical of a so-called merit system that, in his eyes,
continuously rewarded people who were already privileged by virtue of their
perceived talent and education. Two years later, Michael Young’s better known
dystopic social satire, The rise of the meritocracy, was published, warning of the
potential dangers inherent in rule ‘by the talented’. Young underscores that the
assumption of innate talent could lead to new forms of social stratification. So
how, then, did meritocracy, a term that emerged in the crucible of left-wing
critique, become an unalloyed good accepted by both the left and the right as
part of mainstream common sense?
In order to answer this question, Against meritocracy carefully traces meritoc-
racy’s transmutations in the UK, demonstrating how the term’s shifting valence
coincides with the rise of Margaret Thatcher and the entrenchment of neoliberal
policies. Looking at a range of cultural and political texts, Littler reveals this shift,
concluding that: ‘Under Thatcherism neoliberal meritocracy was … presented as a
pragmatic and emancipatory social solution to the gendered inequalities and
industrial strictures of the Fordist Welfare settlement’ (p. 83). Moreover, despite
New Labour’s ascent in the 1990s, each successive Prime Minister has embraced
the notion of meritocracy even as they have imbued the term with slightly differ-
ent hues. Thus, while Cameron’s conservative government perpetuated the indi-
vidualist and consumerist notion of meritocracy enhanced by New Labour, Littler
highlights that so-called Cameronism adopted a more punitive approach than its
predecessor. This punitive approach was emblematized in the binary formulation
popularized by Cameron’s advisor: you are either ‘a striver or a skiver’ (p. 91).
The reason for the wholehearted embrace of meritocracy – from Tony Blair to
Theresa May in the UK, and from Bill Clinton to Donald Trump in the US – is
twofold, Littler points out. First, neoliberalism has become our dominant political
rationality, and as such, it tends to erase traditional political divisions between left
and right. Over the past few decades, the world views of Conservatives and New
Labourites have converged around a strikingly similar belief in entrepreneurial
and competitive individualism. Second, and inextricable from the first, meritoc-
racy has become a key means through which ‘plutocracy – or government by a
wealthy elite – perpetuates, reproduces and extends itself’ (p. 2). Meritocracy
not only functions as an ‘ideological myth’ that promises mobility while ‘obscuring
and extending economic and social inequalities’ (p. 7) but also reinforces the
idea that those who have succeeded in the neoliberal rat race are thoroughly
deserving of their wealth and power.
In the book’s second half, then, Littler offers a number of case studies to show
how ubiquitous the notion of meritocracy has become and how it has been
enfolded into dominant cultural narratives and tropes. More specifically, she dis-
closes how the ideological discourse of meritocracy has been incorporated by the
mainstream and popular media, from representations of celebrity CEOs and other
famous elites as ordinary people or ‘just like us’ (p. 115) to the lionization of
mothers who have become so-called mumpreneurs. These stories and portrayals
– in movies, magazines, newspapers, as well as both reality and quality television
– have gained traction precisely through their endless media repetition. Indeed,
they serve as contemporary ‘parables of progress’ (p. 59), reflecting and
CULTURAL STUDIES 3

(re)producing the notion that anyone can make it if they only mobilize their apti-
tudes and work hard.
In addition to providing a rigorous genealogy and a robust theorization of mer-
itocracy as neoliberalism’s handmaiden, drawing on thinkers from Michel Foucault
to Stuart Hall and Wendy Brown, another key contribution of Littler’s book lies in
her neologism neoliberal justice narratives. These kinds of narratives avow existing
unjust social dynamics, particularly in relation to race, gender and class, while
simultaneously promoting neoliberal marketization and the production of
greater meritocracy as the ersatz solution to these inequalities. Littler gives the
neoliberal feminism of Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg, as an example of
neoliberal justice narratives, which, in turn, buttress meritocracy through the
perpetuation of competitive entrepreneurial selfhood.
In sum, Against meritocracy is an extremely important book that offers a power-
ful diagnosis of our current neoliberal climate. The very scope and strength of its
analysis may, however, leave the reader a little less sure about the possibility of
carving out a more egalitarian society, at least in the near future. Littler, though,
does not dismay, insisting that our frightening contemporary landscape should
make us more determined than ever to imagine and seek out horizons that
include ‘economic equality combined with social, cultural and environmental
diversity’ (p. 221).

Notes on contributor
Catherine Rottenberg is a 2016-18 Marie Skłodowska-Curie visiting professor in the
Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths, and Senior Lecturer in the Department of
Foreign Literatures and Linguistics and the Gender Studies Program at Ben-Gurion Uni-
versity of the Negev. Her new book, The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism will be published
next summer by Oxford University Press.

Catherine Rottenberg
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheba, Israel
rottenbe@bgu.ac.il
© 2018 Catherine Rottenberg
https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2018.1435703

You might also like