Against Meritocracy

Front matter

AGAINST MERITOCRACY

JOCILUNOU

JO LITTLER

Contents

List of figures ix Acknowledgements xi Introduction: Ladders and snakes 1 PART |

Genealogies 21 1 Meritocracy’s genealogies in social theory 23

2 Rising up: Gender, ethnicity, class and the meritocratic deficit 48 3 Meritocratic feeling: The movement of meritocracy in

Index

147 179 212

FIGURES

1.1

1.2

3.1

4.1

6.1

‘Upward Mobility’ by Gloria Pritschet and Tobias Mixer, exhibited at Grammar of the Elite, The Gallery Project, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 2012. Photograph by Jennifer Metsker. Reproduced courtesy of the photographer, the artists and the Gallery Project. Gyanbazi game from Gujarat/Rajasthan, India, late 19th or 20th century. Watercolour on cloth. Reproduced courtesy of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Snakes and ladders board game. Designed in England and manufactured in Germany, c.1900.

Chromolithographed paper on card. Reproduced courtesy of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. UK newspaper The Sun announces that Prime Minister Theresa May is offering ‘Mayritocracy’ through a new wave of grammar schools. Photograph by Nick Ansell / PA Wire / PA Images (PA.28579747). Reproduced courtesy of The Sun and the Press Association.

Cover of Duncan Bannatyne, Anyone Can Do It.

Reproduced courtesy of Orion Books.

Cover of Annabel Karmel, Mumpreneur. Reproduced courtesy of the Random House Group Ltd.

x List of figures

6.2

‘Are You on the Passion Ladder?’, CEO Mums.

Reproduced courtesy of Nicola Huelin and CEO Mums.

Altgen graphic. Design by Constance Laisné for Altgen. Reproduced courtesy of Constance Laisné and Altgen via a Creative Commons License.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have always loved acknowledgements in academic books. As an undergraduate they were evidence that these authors were indeed living, breathing, feeling people with lives. They offered slivers of insight into what the existence of this strange breed called academics might actually be like. Plus! they seemed to be one of the few ways to find out something of how these books actually got written. My all-time favourite academic preface is in Alan Sinfield’s book Faultlines (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), where he dissects this miniature paratextual genre with arch wisdom (‘we might’, he writes, ‘call it the higher gossip’). Noting that, at least these days, fewer prefaces end with ‘the ultimate solecism: thanking the wife for typing it all’, Sinfield thanks his male partner and concludes with a flourish: ‘Oh, and I typed it myself.’

I cannot match Alan Sinfield’s sardonic prowess and only occasionally stray into the confessional. However, I share the sense that it is useful to expose a little of the process involved in writing, in order to dramatise the palpable fact that books are not the singular product of the name on the spine but the result of multiple apparatuses and flows of communication (although I also typed it myself). There are many thanks to give — indeed, given the nature of interdependent relationality, infinite thanks — but PI try and keep it brief.

First and foremost I want to thank my partner Jeremy Gilbert, not just for my extensive exploitation of our mutual editing service but for his love xii Acknowledgements and support and for making everyday life more meaningful than I could otherwise imagine. Thanks and lots of love to our daughters Robin and Isla: yes, I have finished my work now. At least for the moment. Many thanks to all of my extended family and friends, from Aachen to Swansea, from Lucky Cloud to the locals, who I look forward to seeing more of now the intense stage of completing the book is over.

This book would not have been finished — nor indeed properly started, as at least half of it was written at this time — without a three-month research sabbatical from City, University of London where I have worked for the last few years. It was my first sabbatical for ten years, and it is not a coincidence that is also my first single-authored book in ten years. I would like to thank all my colleagues in Sociology (especially Rachel Cohen, who pointed me in the direction of some useful statistics) and in particular my colleagues in the Centre for Culture and Creative Industries: Debbie Dickinson, Cecilia Dinardi, Ana Gaio, Ros Gill, Jenny Mbaye, Janet Merkel, Andy Pratt, Marisol Sandoval, Alex Williams and Diana Yeh.

A small proportion of this work appeared in earlier versions in previous publications. ‘Meritocracy as Plutocracy: The Marketising of “Equality” within Neoliberalism’ (New Formations 80-81 [2013] pp. 52-72) appears in chapters 1 and 2. I am grateful to Lawrence & Wishart for permission to use this piece. A couple of small (and adapted) paragraphs from ‘Consumer Culture and Cultural Studies’ (in Deirdre Shaw, Michal Carrington and Andreas Chatzidakis [eds], Ethics and Morality in Consumer Culture: Interdisciplinary Perspectives [New York: Routledge, 2016]) and from ‘The New Victorians: Celebrity Charity and the Demise of the Welfare State’ (Celebrity Studies 6[4] [2015] pp. 471-485) appear in chapters 2 and 4. A few paragraphs in chapter 4 thematically update my earlier work on celebrity CEOs that Su Holmes and Sean Redmond supported and published, and I am still grateful to them for that. The writing in this book on The Apprentice is indebted to Nick Couldry, for the work we did together to produce our two articles on the subject, back when Donald Trump was but a mere media mogul and corporate CEO. The discussion of Downton Abbey in chapter 6 is the result of many conversations with Roshi Naidoo on the matter, and part of a paper we are writing, and I am grateful to Roshi for her laser-like sense of humour and for being a wonderful friend.

I am also grateful for the wit and wisdom of friends, colleagues and casual acquaintances, who now due to my age suddenly seem more numerous: it is hard to compile a comprehensive list. Academia seems like a small world at first, but when you stay a while, suddenly doors open into other

Acknowledgements xiii academic rooms. So thanks to everyone who was supportive along the way. Particular thanks to those who offered — or who were bribed — to read chunks or chapters of this book: Doreen Massey, Roshi Naidoo, Emma Dowling, Anamik Saha, Gil Rodman, Ros Gill, Milly Williamson, Jeremy Gilbert (who heroically read the entire manuscript) and Sara Hackenberg (who gets a special endurance medal for reading so much of my work over the years). I am extremely grateful for the advice, suggestions, kindness and encouragement you all gave.

At Routledge, many thanks to Natalie Foster for suggesting they publish it and to Sheni Kruger, Kitty Imbert, Stacey Carter and Jamie Askew for putting up with me extending the deadline again (and again). Thanks to Diane Bell at City, University of Library, Fan Yang, Lene Bull Christiansen, Aeron Davis, Joanna Figiel, Dave O’Brien and Ben Little for some very helpful reading suggestions, and to Martin Gilbert for sharing his related writings on the subject. Thanks to all those who invited me to talk on meritocracy at various universities over the past few years, including Brighton, Kings College London, Royal Holloway, Warwick, and Manchester in the UK; University College Dublin, Roskilde University, Denmark and the ACS Institute in Bloemfontein, South Africa.

Special thanks to Trisha Pender for telling me to just write the damn thing already at the beginning and to Bridget Byrne who helped me see that it might be time to stop. Many thanks to Mark and Zée Fisher for being so enthusiastic about my initial article on meritocracy which formed the basis of chapters 1 and 2. I am also grateful to Judith Watson for being encouraging early on and for sharing her ideas on employment progression with me. For conversations which, whether long or short, really helped, particular thanks to Sarah Banet-Weiser, Rebecca Bramall, Kay Dickinson, James Hay, Toby Miller, Diane Negra, Carol Tulloch, Alison Winch, Helen Wood and to all the students at City who told me exactly what they thought of meritocracy. Thanks to Angela McRobbie, Larry Grossberg, Paul Gilroy and Vron Ware for being kind as well as inspiring. Thanks also to the people who said nice things about work I have done in the final stretch which helped me not give up or press the delete button but continue towards concluding and submitting the manuscript.

All the members of the editorial collective of Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture, past and present, have in one way or another helped me be able to produce this book.

Meritocracy is a subject that everyone has an opinion on. Within the time that I’ve had kids it’s been brought home to me how we expect xiv Acknowledgements children to share nicely, but not the grown-ups. So this is for the grown-ups, as a way to help the arguments, movements, strategic discussions and conversations about how we can share. Because if there was ever a time, it is now.

Jo Littler London December 2016