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Capitalism, Meritocracy, and Social Stratification: A Radical Reformulation of the D avis‐ M oore Thesis
Author(s) -
Panayotakis Costas
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
american journal of economics and sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.199
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1536-7150
pISSN - 0002-9246
DOI - 10.1111/ajes.12068
Subject(s) - meritocracy , capitalism , normative , sociology , inequality , social stratification , neoclassical economics , positive economics , epistemology , political science , social science , economics , law , politics , philosophy , mathematics , mathematical analysis
Abstract This article advances a reconceptualization of the D avis‐ M oore thesis, which adresses the weaknesses of D avis and M oore's original formulation and can function not as a causal explanation of inequality but as a normative yardstick, against which the efficiency of capitalist society's use of human talents can be measured. I argue that the nonmeritocratic nature of capitalist society prevents it from using human talents efficiently and that this fact is obscured by a “meritocratic illusion” that is systematically generated by the structural logic of capitalist society. After briefly exploring one way in which capitalism's ecological contradictions impinge on the D avis‐ M oore thesis, I conclude by arguing that it is the mediation of capitalism's contradictions through social struggles that will determine whether a more meritocratic society consistent with the reconceptualized version of the D avis‐ M oore thesis will ever emerge.