Meritocracy and Its Discontents

What do Justin Trudeau, Donald Trump, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk have in common, other than being powerful white men? They have all defended their hiring choices on grounds of meritocracy. In 2017, Trump claimed he had selected his overwhelmingly white, male cabinet entirely based on talent. Trudeau recently defended the appointment of six federal judges in New Brunswick with close ties to the Liberal Party as “merit-based.” Musk has repeatedly cast his workforce, where women account for just 28 percent of employees and only 11 percent of executives, as a meritocracy. And Zuckerberg, whose company is at the centre of an ongoing debate about diversity in Silicon Valley, has referred to Facebook’s “hacker way” as “extremely open and meritocratic.”

Trudeau might count himself unlucky to be included in such company, as his decision to have a fifty-fifty gender split in his cabinet was welcomed by many progressives as a step toward redressing...