Meritocracy and Its Discontents

The Gorgon blowing the fire that fuels the plot of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949) is the ideology of meritocracy. We are instructed in this country that if we enter a period of need – a time when we must turn to others for support – it is because we are failures, people insufficient to the task of living. This is a myth. People hit hard times in our culture not because they are inadequate beings, but rather because the society requires need and want. We live in an economy based on scarcity. People hit hard times because the human animal is a social animal and there’s very little we can accomplish entirely on our own. Those who “succeed” according to the parameters of our society do so within a significant web of support and tutelage.

To the extent that meritocracy does function in the United States, it is decidedly not a system that functions in order to reward behavior that is good for society or for the planet and its nonhuman residents. This is because what is rewarded, ultimately, is the ability to sell and selling is an amoral action. Occasionally, the type of exchange defined by sales can be beneficial to a community, but just as often the exchange requires exploitation, manipulation and despoliation. It results in strained relations that ultimately decay into alienation. Such is the case of Willy Loman. An identity and sense of worth predicated upon one’s ability to sell is a house of kindling awaiting a match.