Many observers say that as society has moved in a "meritocratic" direction, there has been a widening class gap--successful people become less sympathetic to people who have problems, while the less successful alternate between despair and resentment of those who look down on them. I've had several posts saying there isn't much evidence of this in surveys--this is one of the more recent ones. But on an issue like this, no question is perfect, so from time to time I look for others. This is one that has been asked pretty frequently since 1994: "Most people who want to get ahead can make it if they're willing to work hard or hard work and determination are no guarantee of success for most people." Comparing the percentages who say that you can make it in 1999 (the first year for which I can find individual-level data) and 2019:
1999 2019 change
HS or less 75% 62% -13%
Some college 75% 62% -13%
College grad 80% 57% -23%
Belief that you could get ahead by hard work declined among all educational levels, but the decline was largest among college graduates. In 1999,college graduates were somewhat more likely to agree; in 2019, they were somewhat less likely to agree. The pattern is the same as the one I found for a question from the GSS--belief that hard work is the source of success seems to be growing among less educated people relative to more educated people. People who get more education seem to be growing less likely to credit themselves for their success, while less educated apparently don't feel that the system is rigged against them.
Still, it's possible that despite what people say about general principles, educated people are increasingly likely to look down on less educated people and/or less educated people are increasingly likely to feel that they are looked down upon. But I don't believe that is the case.
One reason is that the logic of the argument isn't very strong. "Meritocracy" is used to mean a situation in which success depends on educational credentials, and the attainment of those credentials depends on success at the lower levels of the educational system. What's the alternative? One possibility is that success depends on social position or connections. From history, it seems clear that people at the top in societies like that generally believe that they deserve their position because they are just fundamentally different from other people. Another is that success depends less on educational credentials and more on performance on your job--so the person who leaves school early still has a chance to get ahead. That seems closer to what the critics of "meritocracy" want. But would an elite who rose through performance in the market be less arrogant than an elite who rose through education? Success in education depends on tests and assessments, and anyone who experiences them can see that they are imperfect--even the best test or assignment can't measure everything you were supposed to learn in a course, and being just over or just under an arbitrary line can make an important difference. So a person who succeeds in the educational system is likely to get a sense that luck had some role. In contrast, in the market a person is directly confronting whatever challenges they face, so if they succeed they may be convinced that luck had nothing to do with it.
Another reason is that the examples of elite arrogance today are so weak--the favorite is Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables," which was a (clumsy) attempt to sympathize with working-class Trump voters. Even if you judge that remark more harshly than I do, it was certainly a long way from George Frederick Baer's "The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared
for -- not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men of property
to whom God has given control of the property rights of the country,
and upon the successful management of which so much depends" or "These men [coal miners] don't suffer. Why, hell, half of them don't even speak English." Supporters of labor unions condemned Baer's comments, but he wasn't forced to resign his job as president of the Reading Railroad. According to his Wikipedia biography, Baer left school at age 13 to work as a printer's devil for a local newspaper. He later acquired the newspaper, raised and commanded a company in the Civil War, became a lawyer. He attended Franklin and Marshall College, but apparently didn't graduate, and didn't attend law school. So he had wide-ranging experience of life that's said to promote empathy.
So I think that this aspect of the critique of "meritocracy" is the opposite of the truth--compared to most elites in history, today's meritocratic elites are much more sympathetic to ordinary people and more willing to acknowledge the importance of luck or "privilege" in their success.
[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]
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