Two reports unveiled last week confirm that new Labour is not on course to
create an open, classless society in Britain. The latest British Social
Attitudes (BSA) survey shows class divisions still play a significant role
in people’s consciousness. What has excited most commentary is that, in
spite of the decline in manual labour and a supposed shift to meritocracy,
the majority of people still identify themselves as working class.
On a different tack but with similar implications, the review by Sir Keith
Ajegbo, a Home Office adviser, of compulsory citizenship lessons in schools
concludes that the teaching of “diversity” is leaving many white children
feeling marginalised, demoralised and destined to fail. The fabric of
British society, and our sense of common identity, is still uneven and
strained in all sorts of ways.
So what has gone wrong? To some extent, of course, what is possible in the
social structure is always limited by the economy and the types of jobs
available. But I think that our problems at the moment are much more to do
with our expectations, and in particular with our notion of meritocracy
itself and what sort of society this entails.
I believe the issue goes back nearly 50 years. This is when Michael Young
wrote his influential book The Rise of the Meritocracy, a sociological
fantasy set in the 21st century, which portrayed a sinister, highly
stratified society organised around intelligence testing and intensive
educational selection.
Young’s aim was to warn the Labour party of dangers ahead on the meritocratic
road, where he foresaw growing social and political tensions between the
educated winners and the lower orders. But ironically the book may have
helped pull Labour deeper into the pitfalls he anticipated.
The Rise of the Meritocracy was written after the party’s defeat in the 1951
election. Modernisers such as Hugh Gaitskell and Tony Crosland then argued
that the 1944 Education Act was unleashing a wave of social mobility from
the working class, and that Labour would lose key younger voters if it did
not adapt.
Labour’s new vision, which set the mould for subsequent thinking about a
classless Britain, was for an alliance between the educated elite and the
old working class around a notion of social justice that combined belief in
promoting individual opportunities for high-flyers with collectivist
protection for losers.
It was an optimistic and inclusive concept. Successful meritocrats could avoid
feeling guilty about leaving their families and communities behind because
the welfare state would look after the needy.
This view arguably reached it apotheosis with Peter Mandelson, the European
trade commissioner, who in 2002 wrote that: “In a socially just society, the
daughter of a shop assistant would have the same chance of becoming a High
Court judge as the daughter of a Harley Street doctor . . . we should strain
every ounce of our political energy to . . . make (this) the animating theme
of new Labour.” I do not believe, though, that this is what many people
want.
Last week’s survey seems to enforce the notion that most people want a job
that is reasonably interesting, pays a living wage and which is useful to
society and recognised as such. High public status is not that important to
people who are integrated into their communities. A party that thinks only
of opportunities to achieve this status alienates them and makes them feel
devalued and powerless.
I suspect that a big reason for surprise at the BSA findings is the discovery
that so many people still think in terms of class groupings. A common
assumption is that in a meritocracy status should attach to individuals in a
fluid sort of way rather than to (entrenched and antagonistic) groupings.
The optimistic tenor of the new Labour alliance has hindered us all from
appreciating that meritocracy is a new type of class system.
This leads to what I consider the key problem with Labour’s interpretation of
meritocracy: the role given to the state. Young’s story contains two
messages. First, it attacks the harmful dominance in history of hereditary
elites and approvingly shows how state power in the hands of meritocrats can
break this. Then it goes on to caution that this use of state power itself
sets up new types of inequalities.
But Labour commentators and policy makers have ignored the second bit. They
prefer to focus on the liberating potential of the state, and to regard
central control of educational qualifications and the promotion of
opportunities as ways of generating permanent social revolution: to prevent
the birth of new hereditary classes.
What they fail to heed is that the use of state power effectively turns
meritocrats into a powerful political class, and this produces new forms of
social closure. Centralised strategies to engineer (constant) social
mobility do not make a society open. On the contrary they seem bound to
destroy openness, and without this meritocracy loses its legitimacy.
For insofar as people do want social mobility, they want to achieve it for
themselves, not have it thrust on them through state sponsorship and
favouritism. Political intervention stifles initiative and taints merit.
A large part of new Labour’s support for comprehensive schools has been based
on the idea that teachers have a better chance of picking out and
encouraging bright children if selection is delayed as long as possible. But
in reality they have introduced all manner of social selection within
schools by devising ever more strategies and initiatives to boost the
“success” of particular categories of pupils. The consequences have been
dismal.
Attention given to highly theoretical and academic subjects in state schools
has grown enormously, lest modest and realistic ambitions be allowed any
foothold. Meanwhile actual educational achievement, and with it
working-class social mobility, has declined alarmingly.
The most vigorous intervention has been in favour of immigrant children in an
effort by the government to engineer parity between the occupational
profiles of ethnic groups. This triggers inter-group suspicions and
hostility, and devalues much of the resulting social mobility. More
insidiously, as documented by the Ajegbo report, these practices also serve
to demotivate non-favoured (white) majority children, who end up feeling
excluded.
Over the past few decades a disproportionate amount of the social mobility
that has actually taken place in Britain has been within those poor families
— often among ethnic minorities — who have made sacrifices in order to send
children to private schools. Many senior Labour figures, as parents, appear
to understand this only too well.
In areas where government knows better than to interfere, however, something
like genuine meritocracy can emerge spontaneously. For example, in popular
culture and sport there is widespread acceptance of very differential
rewards. Even extreme wealth is seen as a legitimate return for extreme
effort and talent.
A popular, vigorous open society is there for the taking, but on two
conditions. First, the differential power and importance of jobs should not
be used as a pretext for massively unequal distribution of rewards. Ordinary
work is valuable, too, and should be valued in a decent wage. Second, the
desire to “improve oneself” should not be assumed and then orchestrated from
on high.
The role of the state should just be to enable social mobility by providing
accessible (and lifelong) educational facilities for people when they want
them; not interfering to set endless targets for schools and other bodies,
and singling out groups for special help and accelerated progress.
The Rise and Rise of Meritocracy, edited by Geoff Dench, is launched
tomorrow. For details contact
Lucie.Crowther@oxon.blackwellpublishing.com
