Back to the Theory: Re-Considering Social Policies as Egalitarian Pre-Conditions of the Liberal Meritocracy

Abstract

Looking at the given literature of social policy, it is clearly seen that both definition and objectives of social policies are either explicitly or implicitly associated with the aim of building up just society. However, most of contemporary scholarly works does neither clearly express what type of social justice is aimed by these policies nor explain how and why socio-economic structure of stratified societies morally necessitates social policies. Such ambiguities appear primarily due to insufficient engagement of contemporary social policy literature with broad literature of social justice developed by political philosophy and advanced by sociological conception of inequalities. Thus, an implication of such ambiguities is that the moral justification behind social policies either remains unclear or is covertly built upon a philanthropic and/or altruistic reasoning. Departing from these ambiguities and their implications, this work firstly focuses on the desert and merit-centred value distribution through which the liberal school of social justice in the political philosophy justifies inequalities in outcome. Following this, it discusses on morally flawed nature of the meritocratic distributional model and its associated policies, such as equality of opportunity, by drawing on sociological conception of inequalities. Lastly, underlining the role of individual’s social class in formation of merits and referring to recent conceptual developments in the broad literature of social justice, it justifies social policy as inevitable egalitarian pre-condition, rather than philanthropic and/or altruistic initiatives, for the liberal meritocratic value distribution.

Keywords

• Social Policy
• Liberalism
• Meritocracy
• Inequality
• Social Class

Back to the Theory: Re-Considering Social Policies as Egalitarian Pre-Conditions of the Liberal Meritocracy

Abstract

Looking at the given literature of social policy, it is clearly seen that both definition and objectives of social policies are either explicitly or implicitly associated with the aim of building up just society. However, most of contemporary scholarly works does neither clearly express what type of social justice is aimed by these policies nor explain how and why socio-economic structure of stratified societies morally necessitates social policies. Such ambiguities appear primarily due to insufficient engagement of contemporary social policy literature with broad literature of social justice developed by political philosophy and advanced by sociological conception of inequalities. Thus, an implication of such ambiguities is that the moral justification behind social policies either remains unclear or is covertly built upon a philanthropic and/or altruistic reasoning. Departing from these ambiguities and their implications, this work firstly focuses on the desert and merit-centred value distribution through which the liberal school of social justice in the political philosophy justifies inequalities in outcome. Following this, it discusses on morally flawed nature of the meritocratic distributional model and its associated policies, such as equality of opportunity, by drawing on sociological conception of inequalities. Lastly, underlining the role of individual’s social class in formation of merits and referring to recent conceptual developments in the broad literature of social justice, it justifies social policy as inevitable egalitarian pre-condition, rather than philanthropic and/or altruistic initiatives, for the liberal meritocratic value distribution.

Keywords

• Social Policy
• Liberalism
• Meritocracy
• Inequality
• Social Class

References

1. Adams, R. (2003) Social Work and Empowerment, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
2. Allen, A. (2016) Feminist Perspectives on Power, The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Fall 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (Eds.). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-power/#Bib (14.9.2021)
3. Altan, Ö. Z. (2021) Sosyal Politikaya Giriş, Eskişehir: Nisan Kitabevi.
4. Anderson, E. (2004) “Rethinking Equality of Opportunity: Comment on Adam Swift’s How Not to be a Hypocrite”, Theory and Research in Education, 2 (2), 99-110.
5. Arneson, R. (1997) “Egalitarianism and the Undeserving Poor”, The Journal of Political Philosophy, 5 (4), 327-350.
6. Arneson, R. (1999) “Against Rawlsian Equality of Opportunity”, Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, 93 (1), 77-112.
7. Arneson, R. (2004) “Luck Egalitarianism: Interpreted and Defended”, Philosophical Topics, 32 (1/2), 1-20.
8. Arneson, R. (2015) Equality of Opportunity, The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (Eds.). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equal-opportunity/ (18.8.2021)

9. Barry, N. (2006) “Defending Luck Egalitarianism”, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 23 (1), 89-107.
10. Berlin, I. (1969) “Two Concepts of Liberty”, in Four Essays on Liberty, Berlin, I. (Eds.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 118-172.
11. Breen, R. and Goldthorpe, J. H. (1999) “Class Inequality and Meritocracy: A Critique of Saunders and An Alternative Analysis”, British Journal of Sociology, 50 (1), 1-27.
12. Bridges, K. H. (2017) “The Deserving Poor, The Undeserving Poor, and Class-Based Affirmative Action”, Emory Law Journal, 66 (5), 1049-1114.
13. Candaş, A. and Yılmaz, V. (2012) Türkiye’de Eşitsizlikler, Istanbul: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.
14. Carter, I. (2016) Positive and Negative Liberty, The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Winter 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (Eds.). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative/#toc (24.8.2021)
15. Culpitt, I. (1999) Social Policy & Risk, London: Sage Publication.
16. Dickenson, D. and Oaxaca, R. (2005), “Statistical Discrimination in Labour Markets: An Experimental Analysis”, Working Papers 05-11, Departments of Economics, Appalachian State University. https://ideas.repec.org/p/apl/wpaper/05-11.html (19.08.2021)
17. Duru-Bellat, M. and Tenret, E. (2012) “Who’s for Meritocracy? Individual and Contextual Variations in the Faith”, Comparative Education Review, 56 (2), 223-247.
18. Donoghue, M. and Edmiston, D. (2020) “Gritty Citizens? Exploring the Logic and Limits of Resilience in UK Social Policy During Times of Socio-Material Insecurity”, Critical Social Policy, 40 (1), 7-29.
19. Feinberg, J. (1970) Doing and Deserving – Essays in Theory of Responsibility, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
20. Feldman, F. and Skow, B. (2020) Desert, The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (Eds.). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/desert/ (18.8.2021)
21. Flodare, I. S. (1969) “A Clarification of Ascribed Status and Achieved Status”, The Sociological Quarterly, 10 (1), 53-61.
22. Giddens, A.; Appelbaum, R. P.; Duneier, M. and Carr, D. (2018) Introduction to Sociology, New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company Inc.
23. Gülmez, M. (2017) “Sosyal Politika ve Uluslararası Sosyal Politika Kavramları: Tanım Sorunu, Tanımın Öncülleri ve Tarihsel Boyut”, in Uluslararası Sosyal Politika, Kaya, P. A. and Güler, C. (Eds.), İzmit-Kocaeli: Umuttepe Yayınları, 11-39.
24. Güven, S. (1997) Sosyal Politikanın Temelleri, Bursa: Ezgi Kitabevi.
25. Heuer, J., Lux, T., Mau, S. and Zimmerman, K. (2020) “Legitimizing Inequality – The Moral Repertoires of Meritocracy in Four Countries”, Comparative Sociology, 19, 542-584.
26. Hickman, R. (2009) In Pursuit of Egalitarianism and Why Social Mobility Cannot Get Us There, London: Compass – Direction for the Democratic Left.
27. Jordan, B. (2006) Social Policy for the Twenty-First Century, Cambridge: Polity Press
28. Joseph, J. (2013) “Resilience as Embedded Neoliberalism: A Governmentality Approach”, Resilience, 1 (1), 38-52.
29. Kerbo, H. R. (2012) Social Stratification and Inequalities: Class Conflict in Historical, Comparative, and Global Perspective, New York: McGraw-Hill.
30. Khader, S. (2011) Adaptive Preferences and Women’s Empowerment, New York: Oxford University Press.
31. Kibe, T. (2011) “The Relational Approach to Egalitarian Justice: A Critique of Luck Egalitarianism”, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 14 (1), 1-21.
32. Knight, C. (2013) “Luck Egalitarianism”, Philosophy Compass, 8 (10), 924-934.
33. Lazenby, H. (2016) “What Is Equality of Opportunity in Education?”, Theory and Research in Education, 14 (1), 65-76.
34. Lawton, A. (2000) “The Meritocracy Myth and the Illusion of Equal Employment Opportunity”, Minnesota Law Review, 85 (2), 587-662.
35. Lister, R. (2010) Understanding Theories and Concepts in Social Policies, UK: The Policy Press and the Social Policy Association.
36. Litter, J. (2018) Against Meritocracy – Culture, Power and Myths of Mobility, London and New York: Routledge.
37. Mackenzie, C. and Louth, J. (2020) “Neo-liberal Production of Deserving and Undeserving Poor: A Critique of the Australian Experience of Microfinance”, Social Policy and Society, 19 (1), 19-35.
38. Marshall, G. and Swift, A. (1997) “Meritocratic Equality of Opportunity: Economic Efficiency, Social Justice or Both”, Policy Studies, 18 (1), 35-48.
39. Markovits, D. (2019) The Meritocracy Trap, New York: Penguin Press.
40. Mason, A. (2006) Levelling the Playing Field, New York: Oxford University Press.
41. Maton, K. I. (2017) Influencing Social Policy – Applied Psychology Serving the Public Interests, UK: Oxford University Press.
42. Midgley, J. (2000) “The Definition of Social Policy”, in The Handbook of Social Policy, Midgley, J., Tracy, M. B. and Livermore, M. (Eds.), California: Sage Publication, 3-10.
43. Miller, D. (1999) Principles of Social Justice, Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press.
44. Nussbaum, M. (2000) Women and Human Development – The Capabilities Approach, New York: Cambridge University Press.
45. Olsaretti, S (2004) Liberty, Desert and the Market – A Philosophical Study, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
46. Ören, K. (2013) Sosyal Politika, Ankara: Nobel.
47. Persell, C. H. and Witteveen, D. (2018) “Education” in The Sociology Project 2.5 – Introducing the Sociological Imagination, Manza, J. (Eds.), New York: Pearson, 354-387.
48. Rawls, J. (1971) A Theory of Justice, Cambridge/MA: Harvard University Press.
49. Riva, N. (2015) “Equal Chances and Equal Options: Two Conceptions of Equality of Opportunity”, Ratio Juris, 28 (2), 293-306.
50. Roemer, J. E. (1998) Equality of Opportunity, London: Harvard University Press.
51. Sandel, M. J. (2020) The Tyranny of Merit. What’s Become of the Common Good?, UK: Penguin Books.
52. Satz, D. (2007) “Equality, Adequacy, and Education for Citizenship”, Ethics, 117 (4), 623-648.
53. Stolley, K. S. (2005) The Basics of Sociology, Westport/Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press.
54. Swift, M. and Marshall, G. (1997) “Meritocratic Equality of Opportunity: Economic Efficiency, Social Justice, or Both?”, Policy Studies, 18 (1), 35-48.
55. Yeates, N. (2002) Globalisation & Social Policy, London: Sage Publications
56. Young, M. D. (1958 [2008]) The Rise of the Meritocracy, New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
57. Wilson, C. (2003) “The Role of a Merit Principle in Distributive Justice”, The Journal of Ethics, 7(3), 277-314.
58. Zatz, N. D. (2012) “Poverty Unmodified: Critical Reflections on the Deserving/Undeserving Distinction”, UCLA Law Review, 59 (3), 550-597.