181. What’s So Great About Meritocracy?

No Stupid Questions

Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Society & Culture

4.6 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2024

⏱️ 34 minutes

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Summary

Do you really deserve the credit for your accomplishments? Should college admissions be determined by lottery? And how did Mike’s contribution to a charity auction change his life?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Does anybody ever say that?
0:03.7	I'm Angela Duckworth.
0:05.7	I'm Mike Mann and you're listening to no stupid questions.
0:09.6	Today on the show is meritocracy affair system.
0:14.0	What it shines a light on is how much all of life is a lottery. Angela, I'm super excited to talk to you today.
0:36.2	We've got an amazing question from Patrick Gilmartin, which I almost want to just say in a British
0:42.2	accent the whole time?
0:43.0	Patrick Gilmoss.
0:44.0	Yeah.
0:45.0	I don't know why.
0:46.0	It's about the most British name that you could possibly have.
0:48.0	He doesn't say where he's from, but in my mind, Patrick,
0:51.0	you are from the Great British Isles.
0:53.8	Yes, exactly.
0:54.7	So Patrick says, I'm a big fan of the podcast.
0:57.4	It would be insightful if the two of you could talk
1:00.4	about the potential failures of a meritocracy like the one discussed in the
1:05.1	meritocracy trap by Daniel Markovitz. Are you familiar with this book? I haven't
1:09.8	read the meritocracy trap but I'm pretty familiar with these arguments against
1:14.2	meritocracy. Okay, good. Well, look, here's the rest of Patrick's question.
1:17.4	He says, although a path toward a meritocracy seems like a fair and ethical goal. It seems like there could be some downsides.
1:26.4	Wealth inequality has risen substantially in the US and so have rates of
	...

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