Merit,Capital and Middle Class: Exploring the Linkages

Introduction

Earlier this year in January 2022, the Supreme Court of India in its detailed judgement on the stalled PG-NEET counselling process for 2021 validated the need for reservations in the All-India seats, and it also offered an explanation on the merit of reservation. In their judgement, Justice D. Y. Chandrachud and Justice A. S. Bopanna stated as follows: ‘Merit cannot be reduced to narrow definitions of performance in an open competitive examination which only provides formal equality of opportunity …’ (Supreme Court, 2022, p. 66). In the above case, the petitioner urged that the postgraduate courses require a high degree of skill and expertise, and such opportunities should be distributed on the basis of merit and not reservations, which they viewed as detrimental to the national interest. In India, there has been a long-standing debate, dating back to the Constituent Assembly debates, over whether reservation for any class impinges on the idea of merit. This debate in essence is based on the idea of efficiency and skill wherein reservation is often viewed as an inefficient system antithetical to establishing meritocracy.

This article attempts to probe into the very idea of merit, especially in relation to the emergence of private capital. Further, through an exploration of its characteristics and the process of its construction and reproduction, this article attempts to trace the origins of merit in the Indian context and understand its importance in relation to not just caste but also class, particularly the middle class. In doing so, this article will seek to understand how merit as a category is constructed and operationalised in academic and employment discourse and whether the claim of equality of opportunity translates into equality of outcome.

Thomas Picketty in his book Capital in the Twenty-first Century argued that ‘democratic societies rest on a meritocratic worldview’ (Piketty, 2014, p. 297). Industrial societies are typically described as meritocratic and characterised by the market logic of individualism and self-making wherein individuals are recognised solely on the basis of their personal achievements of merit and hard work and inequalities are viewed as products of individual incapacities. Such a view of industrial societies emanates from the market logic of capitalism which asserts that the economy, through the interaction of demand and supply forces, is both self-balancing and all-powerful wherein the society, politics and all other forms of social relations are believed to be derived and modified from economic relations (Piketty, 2014, p. 297). This view, following a functionalist tradition, also propagates the view that the system of education in such societies is fair and provides equal opportunities to all individuals on the basis of hard work and merit (Giddens, 2009). Accordingly, merit has emerged as the principal means for legitimising the contemporary capitalist culture. However, the idea of merit remains an amorphous concept and is difficult to explain.

What Is Merit?

Merit as a concept can be traced back to variety of genealogies. Durkheim discussed merit while discussing the idea of society wherein he viewed society as that which provides ‘free space for all merits’ such that social harmony can be achieved, provided people engaged in work according to their natural abilities (Durkheim, 1922, 1925). Others like Littler (2018) argue that the contemporary form of merit emerged with the idea of a global ‘knowledge economy’ in the 1970s which labelled those with less social and economic power as being characterised by a ‘meritocratic deficit’ (p. 108) and sought to inculcate in them the competitive meritocratic dream of individualistic competition. As Collins (1979) argued, the education system in such societies taught and rewarded values of competition and achievement in which individuals and groups sought to monopolise their privileged positions by gatekeeping their cultural currency of educational credentials. The ideological discourse of merit in the knowledge economy has since emerged as an important factor for structuring contemporary societies (Littler, 2018; McNamee & Miller, 2009).

As an ideological construct, merit is viewed as a ‘ladder of opportunity’ (Williams, 1958, p. 3) which encourages individuals to believe that irrespective of one’s social position at birth, through opportunities provided by the society and through one’s own talent and effort, one can overcome social barriers imposed through ascriptions of caste, class, gender or race and ‘rise to the top’ (Littler, 2018). However, as McNamee and Miller argue, ‘the most important factor determining where people end up economically is where they start from in the first place’ (2009, p. 16). For socially disadvantaged sections, the start of this ladder is not the same as others.

Individuals belonging to lower castes, classes and other marginalised communities do not share similarity in socio-economic backgrounds, education and training, economic affordability, social networks, or cultural resources and, therefore, climbing the ladder is often much more difficult for individuals lacking such resources, especially when compared to those who possess such resources by the virtue of their familial location. In effect, while merit, on the one hand, provides a sense of advancement detached from money or birth, on the other hand, it also validates existing social hierarchies through sociocultural divisions which condition the available opportunity structures (Littler, 2018).

Apart from what it principally denotes, merit also functions as a kind of entitlement, a status position, which enables individuals to assert themselves in terms of their capabilities, competence and social, economic and cultural positions in a larger hierarchical social arrangement (Young, 1994, p. xvii) and persuades both the included and the rejected that the division is fair. As Khan (2012) argues, the discourse on merit does not consider (or altogether ignores) the social and economic location of individuals. Through an assumption that talent and intelligence are inborn abilities (and not something that can be acquired), this principle creates an oligarchy of talent, replacing the older oligarchies of birth or wealth; however, if probed further, one will find an overlap between these two hierarchies, as those who enjoy the privileges of birth and wealth are usually also those who enjoy the privilege of merit. For this reason, Litter (2017) argues that this form of merit functions to create an ‘ideological myth’ (p. 12) of a level playing field, which in reality does not exist, to obscure the inequalities it promotes.

Private Capital and the Emergence of Merit

In common parlance, merit is usually denoted in the form of a certification of competence—an aptitude or knowledge but more importantly a specialised skill required for the purpose of production, which is acquired through specialised training in a recognised institution. This view of individuals as critical resources essential for the purpose of production arose more significantly with the emergence of capital, more specifically private capital.

In traditional societies, work was performed collectively by members of the family and commonly took place within the confines of the home; even in agricultural or pastoral societies, work was performed together by members of the family. The idea of private capital can be traced back to the feudal society wherein both the means of production, including labour came to be owned by the feudal lords. With the onset of industrialisation, work became individualised as individual workers became free and mobile; they were no longer owned by their feudal lords but were free to work and were employed for their individual capacities in return for wages. It is in this transition that for the first time, labour came to be recognised for their individual skill endowments—such as knowledge of operating machines and other specialised technical knowledge required for production, which differentiated one worker from another and created a hierarchy among workers in terms of their individual skills and work capacities (Hickman, 2009). This ordering of skills also resulted in a hierarchy of wages wherein workers were paid according to the importance accrued by the employers to each of their skill sets (Moss & Tilly, 2001).

In capitalist societies, the bulk of capital exists in the form of private corporate capital, owned and managed by members of the same family or kin. While earlier owners retained majority control over family firms, with structural changes in the global economy and rapid technological transformation, there has been a shift in the nature of business.

With economic growth, firms were forced to adopt differentiation and specialisation to increase their production; consequently, firms were forced to explore outside of their kinship networks for finances, which brought in financial institutions and other financial instruments such as stocks and shareholders (Chandler, 1977). Soon ownership was scattered across various stakeholders, but neither the financial institutions (like banks) nor the family remained in control of the firm. As ownership gets scattered, owners and financial institutions became mere observers and ‘current operations and future plans were left to the career administrators …’ (Chandler, 1977, p. 395). As family firms grew, they were forced to employ non-family full-time professional managers who possessed the specialised skill and training of managing business, especially because not all family members possessed the required qualification or skills or had the abilities or aptitude necessary for their business management.

This need for specialised managers and technical experts resulted in the establishment of specialised centres for technological and management training which offered its students training in the myriad range of skills deemed essential by the industry. Initially, specialised institutes of technology and management emerged in the West, but they were soon promoted across less developed economies including India. These institutes are accorded the highest status and are considered to be elite educational institutions representing modern, independent and meritocratic values by virtue of the specialised skill endowments of their students.

In contemporary economies, while members of business families continue to own significant shares of the company, the actual management and functioning of the company is usually performed by a team of trained professionals (who are outside of the kinship network), who are paid high remuneration for their specialised services. Unlike the owners, managers owed their success not to familial capital but to their intellectual or professional qualifications validated through professional degrees or diplomas (Morck, 2005). These professional managers generally belonged to the middle class or, more specifically, upper middle-class families, who invested their limited economic and social capital in specialised educational institutions for the acquisition of human capital, which in turn also helped them in consolidating cultural capital. As a reason, managers in contemporary economies emerged as products of a so-called ‘meritocracy’ (Naudet et al., 2017).

The origin of merit can hence be found in the transition from feudal to capitalist society wherein the economy is rooted in the idea of merit. In industrial economies, the corporate sector lays down prescriptions for the labour market where different types and levels of jobs require different kinds of labour with different levels of education and skill training. This change in the nature of the capital has given rise to a difference in the approach to education and consequently to rapid and vast changes in the educational systems of most modern industrialised nations, and India is no exception. The fundamental tenet of merit therefore lies in the differential skill required by industries on the basis of which an artificial hierarchy is constructed wherein the ‘best’ or most high-paying high-status jobs are marked out for those with the highest level of skills.

Merit in Indian Context: Caste, Class and Skill

Entry into employment, especially in the private sector, is conditional on the possession of education and skill training; only those individuals who have the requisite level of education and formal skill training are considered meritorious and hence eligible for recruitment. The system of education and employment in the country is deeply guided by the idea of merit, but much like all other aspects of economic and political life in India, the idea of merit is conditioned by the country’s colonial history and the existing inequalities in Indian society.

Skill, as a concept, comprises of several systematically acquired capacities which are sustained by individuals through both formal training and through informal means, which determines the living and working conditions of an individual. Individuals in their life course come to acquire several skills which can be broadly classified in terms of cognitive skills (such as technical abilities, oral communication and language skills, among others) (Moss & Tilly, 2001) and non-cognitive, behavioural or ‘soft skills’ (Moss & Tilly, 2001, p. 10). Irrespective of the nature and type of skills possessed, skills can be acquired through various ways: first, through hereditary training, where following the caste-based occupational segregation of society, the expertise of a particular trade or vocation is passed on to the future generations through gradual exposure and involvement in traditional occupations such as carpentry, masonry and tailoring, which enables an individual to continue with the ancestral profession through their informal training; second, through formal vocational training that takes place in education and training institutions and which follows a structured programme leading to certificates, diplomas or degrees recognised by the State; and third, in the form of on-the-job training, which refers to the expertise acquired by a person while in employment either through informal ways or through formal in-house skill upgrading programmes while on the job.

Formalised skill training in India can be traced back to the colonial period when skill education was provided under state patronage. In the pre-colonial era, India was largely a mercantile capitalist society with handloom and handicraft industry being predominant. Following the caste-based occupational segregation, the traditional holders of skill were the lower caste groups, namely the Shudras (with the Brahmins being priests and Kshatriyas being soldiers) who were the principal commodity producers and traders. The traditional weavers and artisans, for example, were a powerful group who had their own economic basis and were self-sufficient as they had the skills needed to support the economy of the time. In the pre-colonial era, the skilled castes were the lower castes who possessed significant economic power despite their lower social and religious status.

This scenario changed drastically with British colonial industrialisation. In order to facilitate the functioning of their colonial regime, the British government undertook several new policies in India like the establishment of railways, telegraphy, irrigation systems, etc. Along with all such policies, the colonial government also introduced the system of Western education in India in the nineteenth century with the aim of training Indians in both the English language and to the ‘superior’ English culture, such that the Western educated Indians could then work in the colonial administration and act as their mediators with the local Indians who were unable to comprehend the English language (Habib & Raina, 1989).

This new kind of education was initially offered only to the loyalists of the colonial rule, but with successive colonial Acts and Resolutions, English education was institutionalised in India (Nukapangu, 2020). Western education in India was initially provided by the Christian missionaries who provided free education for all, but sensing its growing popularity, the colonial government soon established its own schools on a ‘pay and study policy’ (Nukapangu, 2020, p. 1133) and pressurised missionaries to follow suit. As education became expensive, the upper-caste groups, who were a handful and had the financial resources, were able to join the British schools, colleges and even universities, while the poor non-Brahmins were forced to withdraw. It thus led to the creation of a class of Western-educated middle-class men who were popularly called ‘babus’ (literally, clerks who worked in the British administration) who were expected to familiarise other Indians with not just the English language but also the British culture (Jodhka & Prakash, 2016). From then on, English became the first language and was viewed as the main key towards claims to merit.

Apart from its focus on the English language, this Western model of education also promoted technical education like engineering, which was needed for building colonial infrastructure. While earlier labour was viewed as a low-caste occupation undignified for the upper castes to pursue, the introduction of Western technical educational institutions made technical education aspirational and the resourceful upper castes embrace it as a new form of ‘high-status professions’. As Subramanian notes, ‘[o]ver the 19th and 20th century, technical knowledge went from being the purview of Indian lower caste artisans to becoming integral to state power, economic development and upper caste status’ (2019, p. 2). This transition also resulted in the emergence of the contemporary form of merit in the modern industrial system.

These Western-educated individuals generally belonged to a small class of intellectuals and professionals who belonged to socially privileged backgrounds (generally dominant caste and class groups; Habib & Raina, 1989) and constituted a separate and distinct social category of the middle classes in Indian society (Jodhka & Prakash, 2016). This new group of English-educated Indians with their knowledge of Western civilisations (not just of the British but also of other Western civilisations) were expected to have ‘ushered in the era of the modern’ wherein much emphasis was placed on ’reason and social comfort’ (Habib & Raina, 1989, p. 52). Exposure to other Western civilisations, like the French civilisation, further exposed this group of intellectuals to ideas of democracy and liberalism and soon Western-educated Indians (such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Swami Dayanand and others) began to envisage reforming Indian society into a modern and liberal society, free of the evils prevailing in traditional India. However, as Jodhka and Prakash (2016) point out that the reform activities that were carried out were led by Western-educated individuals belonging to the dominant social groups such as the upper castes and middle-class Hindus who aimed to initiate internal reforms in Hinduism and reduce the increasing rates of Hindus converting to Christianity.

Only those who were able to pursue the Western style of education introduced by the British (in the colonial period) were able to gain from an otherwise unequally distributed system and were consequently able to secure employment in the colonial administration. Those who benefited from this system in the colonial period were also the first ones to benefit from the state system of education and employment post-Independence. Right from the initial years of the Indian national movement, considerable importance was placed on both Western education, particularly English education, and scientific knowledge, as these were associated with the ideals of modernity and social progress. Several specialised institutions of scientific thought such as the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Sciences, the National Institute of Sciences (presently known as the Indian National Science Academy) and many other similar institution and societies like the Asiatic Society of Bengal were formed in this period. However, claims to Western education and to scientific thought largely remained in the hands of the dominant social groups. As Forbes (1975) asserted, most intellectuals of the time and the ‘masters of science’ (p. 115) were predominantly Hindus; but as other scholars have pointed out, they were primarily middle-class and upper-caste Hindus. Thus, Western education, especially modern scientific knowledge, was traditionally given a high social status and prestige in the Indian society. This emphasis placed on scientific knowledge was also adopted by the Indian government post-Independence.

Through claims over Western education, upper castes were able to position themselves as a class of white-collar professionals and have been able to ‘transform their caste capital into modern capital’ (Deshpande, 2013, p. 33; also see Sheth, 1999). Through state-funded elite education, the upper and middle classes were able to convert their inherited capital into credential capital. This transformation, based on inherited and accumulated resources, allowed the upper castes to refashion themselves as modern subjects committed to universalistic notion of equality and democracy and embodying the concept of merit. In the context of merit being a ‘social ladder of opportunity’, Deshpande argues that caste too acts as a social ladder for the upper castes. He notes,

caste-qua-caste has already yielded all it can and represents a ladder that can now be safely kicked away. Having encashed its traditional caste-capital and converted it into modern form of capital like property, higher educational credentials and strongholds in lucrative professions, this section believes itself to be ‘casteless’ today. (Deshpande, 2013, p. 32)

The people who were able to make this transition were essentially the children of the educated middle-class elites who had now emerged to form the ‘new’ middle classes of contemporary India which possess modern education and skill training, primarily from private educational institutions, but have also inherited social and cultural capital from their previous generations (Fuller & Narasimhan, 2007).

The concept of merit when operationalised thus acquires a caste and also a class blindness in India wherein the holders of merit themselves forgo their caste assertion and instead form a class by themselves characterised by possession of not just economic capital but also control over other forms of capital such as human, social and cultural capital resources (Bourdieu, 1986), which yield them significant rewards in the market and accord them an elite status in the society. Such claims in practice get translated into definitive educational credentials, cultural practices and social networks which, when probed closely, reveal that despite their differences in the ascribed identities, they largely belong to a common class group—the middle classes, comprising mainly of the upper and dominant castes. In an economy where the rich are essentially viewed as owners of capital and the poor are relegated to the lower rungs of the economy with menial jobs and low wages, the professional and middle-rung employees constituting the bulk of the workforce essentially belong to the middle classes who possess the requisite education and skill training as well as other factors such as social networks, cultural practices and complimenting status positions to access and compete for jobs in the private economy.

The idea of middle class, however, is not new. Globally, it came into existence with the development of modern societies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with industrialisation and development of cities as arenas for a new kind of social order (Jodhka & Prakash, 2016). In the case of India, the historical and social category of middle class emerged during the colonial period with the introduction of Western-style educational system, industrial economy and rise of new system of bureaucratic administration implemented by the British empire in order to facilitate their control over the country (Kothari, 2005). While the middle classes in the colonial period mainly comprised of a small number of professionals from socially privileged backgrounds, the new middle classes in independent India were a more numerous groups of largely professional and salaried individuals who did not have any direct involvement in trade or commerce. This group was, as Mazzarella (2005, p.1) describes, ‘short on money but long on institutional perks’. With the expansion in Indian bureaucracy, the middle classes as a group also expanded to meet the increasing demands for educated and skilled professionals (Jodhka & Prakash, 2016).

The narrative of merit helps further the middle-class identity as it argues in favour of acquiring education and skills through hard work, as means for attaining social mobility. The global project of modernising and development, with its emphasis on educated and technically skilled professionals, increasingly invokes this link between middle class and merit as a positive characteristic of modernity and as an embodiment of ideal citizenship in which an ideal citizen will through their education and hard work attempt to attain upward mobility (Jodhka & Prakash, 2016).

In the initial years of nation building, the Indian state undertook major investments in the field of scientific education and technological advancement and established institutions such as the IITs, IIMs and IISs, among others, which provided specialised and professional knowledge to the middle-class youth. In the 1990s, when the country adopted economic reforms, these technically trained individuals greatly benefited as they were the first ones to get high-paying management jobs in a rapidly expanding global corporate economy, particularly in specialised sectors such as IT and management. Thus, while, until the 1980s, the middle classes grew within the state-supported sectors, with the adoption of reform policies, they grew alongside the expansion of the private sector in the economy. As a result, the middle-class identity in contemporary times has become aspirational (Jodhka & Prakash, 2016), where everyone aims and claims to be part of the educated and skilled meritocratic middle class.

Equality of Opportunity or Equality of Outcome

As a fundamental ideology of capitalist culture, merit offers a fancied promise that a ladder of opportunity exists for everybody who through their hard work and talent can move out of their marginalised ‘habitus’ (Bourdieu, 1984) and attain social mobility. Increasingly, educational and business institutions have popularised this idea thanks to which the principle of merit has come to both essentialise the notion of talent and competitive individualism as well as legitimise the social and economic inequalities of neoliberalism. Based on the premise of providing ‘equality of opportunity’ (Littler, 2018, p. 153), the discourse of merit then in practice tends to erase the histories ‘producing the formations of power and privilege, burying them alive but out of recognizable reach’ (Goldberg, 2015, p. 101). Comparatively, less number of individuals belonging to lower caste and classes in elite educational institutions and in high-status professional employment indicates that the existing opportunity structures do not yield the same results for all; the dichotomy of merit lies not in its notion of equal opportunity structures but in the lack of equal outcomes.

In order to retain their claims over their status positions, the elites create an ‘imaginary universe of perfect competition of perfect equality of opportunity, a world without inertia, without accumulation, without heredity or acquired properties’ (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 46). The market also plays a crucial role in this regard by promoting a merit-based system of admissions without any social welfare provision like reservations for marginalised sections in India, wherein admission is based on marks or grades instead of social categories; the fact that such a form of education is fundamentally dependent on various capital resources remains unsaid. Following this logic, private sector education is often viewed as casteless, while the public sector is viewed to be suffused with caste (Subramanian, 2015).

The existence of elites is not a new phenomenon, but what is noteworthy of modern-day elites is the extent to which they feel the need to pretend that they are not elite; they present themselves as ordinary, as ‘just like anybody else’. Globally, many wealthy elites insist on presenting themselves as hardworking and meritocratic by virtue of which they argue to have earned their social status positions. Such a claim over hard work and talent is of great importance to this new category of elites as it provides them a form of ‘rhetorical cover’ (Khan & Jerolmack, 2013, p. 182) for their inherited advantages which in turn helps in validating the idea of social mobility using merit as a standard, which also helps them simultaneously maintain legitimacy over their social status (Littler, 2018; Piketty, 2014). The combination of the rhetoric of hard work and openness while practicing protection (exclusiveness) is what gives rise to privilege among the new elites in modern societies (Khan, 2012). Thus, while the system claims to be following merit, it actually practices privilege (Khan & Jerolmack, 2013).

Multiple forms of discrimination such as discrimination in principle or discrimination in practice or resource discrimination are also legitimised under the canvas of merit, which is then paradoxically promoted as being an egalitarian principle. Merit can thus be viewed as a form of embodied cultural capital which is legitimised through institutional recognitions in the form of academic qualifications but remains viewed as detached from social histories (Bourdieu, 1984).

Conclusion

The emphasis placed on individualism by modern and industrial societies propagates the idea that success can be achieved through individual effort and hard work alone and valorises the process of self-making as the fundamental principle of modern societies. Yet as this article aims to emphasise, success cannot be achieved by individual effort alone; success for an individual is conditioned and constructed through collective assertions of family background, social identities of caste, class and cultural attributes. While it is true that many people have been able to attain social mobility, the opportunities for mobility are conditioned by the social backgrounds wherein individuals placed at the lower end of the ‘social ladder’ find it harder to climb the ladder than those already placed at higher levels (Littler, 2018).

In case of India, while ascribed identities of caste or religion, as exhibited by several scholars, continue to remain important, this article argues that nonetheless there seems to be an overarching influence of class identities wherein class origins greatly determine social mobility outcomes. ¹ The most successful in India typically belong to the same social class – the middle class. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, professors, management heads, other professionals and even several company owners in India, all identify themselves as middle classes even though there exists a sharp distinction in the consumption patterns, social and cultural attributes between these professionals and the others in society (Jodhka & Prakash, 2016). None of these individuals would describe themselves as elites or privileged; instead, they would largely argue that they enjoy a relatively better position than others (also emphasising on their relatively deprived positions vis-à-vis big business families) by virtue of their merit, due to their individual efforts and hard work (Manikutty, 2000) and not as a result of family wealth, inheritance or social class (Jodhka & Prakash, 2016). Yet as the above discussion points out, the claims to merit are principally conditioned by their social class.

Deshpande (2013) and Subramanian (2015) in their respective studies have argued that elite institutions provide the necessary institutional mechanisms through which the dominant castes were able to convert their inherited caste capital into acquired modern capital. They add that institutional spaces that are commonly perceived as meritocratic are in reality overwhelmingly composed of upper castes; and any attempt at opening up access to such spaces through affirmative actions are met with vehement opposition and termed as infringement on merit. While lower castes are defined in terms of their eligibility for reservation, the upper castes in contrast are defined as individual citizen characterised by merit, which is embraced as ‘a collective caste trait that distinguishes them from lower castes’ (Subramanian, 2019, p. 22). Therefore, while on one hand, merit is claimed through the subversion of caste identity, on the other, it is articulated through caste-based perception.

Instead of replacing caste identities with universal identities, the present discourse of merit in practice rearticulates traditional ascriptions as explicit basis for merit by which new forms of upper caste but more importantly class identities are constituted (Subramanian, 2015). Therefore, traditional identities like caste continue to remain as an explicit basis for merit, through which new forms of upper caste assertions, but more significantly, contemporary social class identities are formed.

The concept of merit has been vehemently upheld as an equalising and democratic means for removing social inequalities of ascription. However, by ignoring the historical and social realities, this concept in practice functions as a less visible class strategy through which the traditional elites are able to legitimise the existing social hierarchies and reproduce their dominant social status even in contemporary societies.