This is a revised version of a paper presented to the conference 'Defining Merit' held at Macquarie University in September 1985.
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The
merit principle, used as a way of removing biases in occupational structures,
is flawed. The evaluation of merit is tied to the interests of those in positions
of power, so that application of the merit principle is compatible with continued
structural inequalities. In practice the concept of merit is used as a resource
in organisational power struggles. A deeper problem with the merit principle is
its acceptance of occupational hierarchies. A more fundamental equal opportunity
requires some form of self-management.
Paradoxically,
the concept of merit has become a catchphrase of both supporters and opponents
of legislated equal employment opportunity. On the one hand, advocates of
women's and other minority rights have supported application of the merit
principle, underpinned by affirmative action to remove unfair starting
handicaps, to provide real equal employment opportunity. On the other hand,
traditional bureaucratic elites have invoked the merit principle to oppose what
they allege is reverse discrimination against white middle-class males. In the
struggle over equal opportunity, the concept of merit is being used by both
sides as a tool. To understand how this comes about, it is necessary to examine
the power structures of organisations.
The merit
principle is most commonly applied in bureaucratic or semi-bureaucratic
organisations. These organisations are constructed most fundamentally on
hierarchy and a division of labour. The classical picture sees bureaucracy as
an instrument for rational administration, operating on the basis of
universalistic principles (Weber 1964). Seniority is commonly used as a basis
for advancement in a bureaucracy simply because it is easy to measure and
because it supposedly shows commitment to the organisation. But seniority does
not seem to be a suitable principle for maximising organisational performance.
Merit, an assessment of a person's ability, experience and motivation relevant
to performing a job, would seem to be a more suitable principle for measuring
and rewarding performance in an ideal bureaucracy.
What is merit
in the conventional theory of bureaucracy? 'Ability plus effort' is a typical
formula. There are three standard ways of assessing merit: examinations,
credentials and work experience and performance. Examinations are often used in
recruitment into bureaucracies, but much less commonly in promotion.
Credentials are especially important in professions: credentials are a
prerequisite for entry to law, medicine, engineering and many other
occupations. It is commonly argued that credentials demonstrate one's ability
or suitability to undertake a job in bureaucracies as well. Finally, work
experience and performance provide indicators of merit, especially in
demonstrating whether abilities shown by examinations or credentials are
actually utilised on the job.
In practice
the measures of examinations, credentials and performance are mixed together in
the assessment of merit. Credentials become important, for example, when
professional and bureaucratic systems of social organisation are intertwined,
as they often are. In hospitals, advancement through the organisational
hierarchy usually depends on having a medical degree as well as experience in
administration. In many high-technology companies, degrees in engineering or
science provide a basis for rising into the management stream. To become head
of a school a background as a teacher, implying possession of suitable teaching
credentials, is usually a prerequisite. In these and other cases there is
commonly a parallel 'administrative stream' for those without professional
credentials. This administrative stream may or may not provide access to the
highest levels of the organisation, depending on the relationship of the
professional system compared to the bureaucratic system.
The standard
picture of the role of merit then is as a means of assessing a person's
suitability for a job in a bureaucratic and/or professional system. The
question which needs to be faced by supporters of equal opportunity is whether
merit can indeed be applied in an unbiased manner, or at least a relatively
unbiased manner. If this cannot be done in practice, it may not be wise to rely
too heavily on merit in pursuing the project of overcoming discrimination in
employment. To approach this issue, I will look more closely and critically at
the way in which power is exercised in large organisations.
I will begin
by arguing that the struggle for advancement within complex organisations is
part of a wider power struggle, in which resources provided by white
middle-class male culture are crucial. Since work is embedded in the
organisational context, evaluation of merit is shot through with the biases of
those in positions of power as well as biases in the very definition of merit
in a system which imposes unequal life opportunities. The usual definition of
merit within organisations may seem fair, and be applied fairly within its own
terms, while being entirely compatible with the continuance of structural
inequalities such as male dominance. Merit can never be unambiguously assessed,
but is rather one tool among others in organisational power struggles.
Going beyond
this, a fundamental flaw in the merit principle lies in its acceptance of
occupational hierarchies in which the decisions of the few control the work of
the many. Rather than trying to equalise opportunity within a hierarchical
system - which at most can change the individuals who occupy the slots - a more
fundamental 'equal opportunity' would involve redesigned occupational
structures in which workers defined the conditions and goals of their work.
This would allow women, the disabled and others to be involved in an equal way by
restructuring the hitherto distinct and unequal arenas of public and private
life.
Traditional
views on bureaucracies and professions have been challenged in recent years by
scholars who see these as political systems. First consider bureaucracy. The
traditional Weberian picture of bureaucracy as a rational system of
organisation has strongly influenced much organisational theory, which
concentrates on how management can overcome obstacles to efficiency. Nevertheless,
it is widely recognised that actual bureaucracies do not behave precisely
according to Weber's ideal-typical picture. There is a constant struggle for
power within bureaucracies, a process which includes power relations embodied
in interpersonal discourse, competition between internal factions, conflicts
between bureaucrats and clients, and struggles between bureaucracies.
Rejecting the
Weberian assumptions is the political perspective on organisations presented by
Deena Weinstein (1977,1979), according to which bureaucracies are best
understood as political systems. Individuals and groups within bureaucracies
exercise power using the particular social and material resources available,
including control over labour power, positions, clients, funding and knowledge.
Overt political activity by workers is commonly inhibited by fear of reprisals
and by habits of acquiescence, often based on beliefs or fear.
The key role
of power is most obvious when oppositions form within bureaucracies, either individual
dissidents or whole movements. What usually happens is not a rational
assessment of the claims of the dissidents, but rather suppression of the
dissidents themselves: corporation executives who speak out critically about
their employer's behaviour typically will be sacked; soldiers who rebel will be
court-martialed; rank-and-file revolts by trade unionists may be smashed by
expulsions (Weinstein 1977, 1979; see also Anderson et al. 1980; Perrucci et
al. 1980; Zald & Berger 1978).
Weinstein
likens bureaucracies to authoritarian states in their political structure in
that control is exercised from the top with few opportunities for popular
participation. Democratic structures are token or non-existent, and the elites
control the main political and economic resources. The main difference between
bureaucracies and authoritarian states is that normally bureaucratic elites
cannot use violence to enforce their control. One of the consequences of this
power struggle is that the goal of the bureaucracy may be displaced from outer
service to inner control (Hummel 1977). This picture does not assume that
bureaucracies are monolithic structures, nor that the only political power
exercised is strictly according to formal structures. Indeed, it is the
existence of oppositions which shows that power is based on a set of practices
which do not accord with formal rationality.
A similar
analysis of professions has been developed in recent years. Contrary to the
traditional picture of professionals using their knowledge and skills purely in
the service of society, this analysis sees occupational groups using knowledge
and skills as resources to increase their power, wealth and status. Doctors for
example use credentialing and licensing systems to keep down numbers in the
medical profession and then use their control over the resulting scarce
resource of 'legitimate' expertise to push for higher salaries and control over
medical decision-making (Freidson 1970; Johnson 1972; Larson 1977; Parkin 1979;
Willis 1983; for a critique see Saks 1983). Opposition movements also arise in
professions. The medical profession has routinely taken action to deny status
and resources to challengers such as practitioners of 'fringe therapies', for
example by lobbying to deny their inclusion under medical benefits schedules.
The political
picture of bureaucracy and professions provides a useful way to begin to
analyse their interactions with systems based on class, gender and ethnicity,
which can be treated as power systems which cannot be reduced to each other nor
to some other essence (Brittan & Maynard 1984). Class, gender and ethnicity
in this picture are resources which can be deployed in bureaucratic and
professional struggles, and conversely bureaucratic and professional power are
resources which can be deployed in struggles involving class, gender and
ethnicity.
For example,
there are various ways in which male domination is maintained in bureaucracies
and professions. Overt discrimination against women is the most obvious way.
This is made possible by control of the top decision-making positions by men.
Secondly, external support systems for employees are biased against women.
Since women continue to carry most of the burden of housework and child care,
most women employees are doing 'double duty' compared to men, especially those
who have the support of wives for these tasks. Thirdly, organisational styles
usually favour those with personal characteristics which are typically
masculine, such as aggressiveness and competitiveness. Women who do not behave
this way are not deemed as suitable material for promotion, while women who do
behave this way are denigrated as not behaving appropriately for their sex.
Finally, the gender division of labour excludes most women from opportunities
to rise in organisational or professional hierarchies. Similar mechanisms are
used to limit the advancement of members of ethnic minorities, those who
maintain links with working class culture, and those who take threatening
political stands.
This example
of the meshing of bureaucracy and patriarchy is silent about the precise
mechanisms of domination and group cohesion within bureaucratic and patriarchal
systems. One possible analysis, avoiding the resort to a dominant ideology
thesis (Abercrombie et al. 1980), could be based on the material interests of
most men in patriarchal systems and of most bureaucratic elites in their
positions. These elites, for example, mobilise the support of other men, lower
in the job hierarchy, by supporting them against the challenge to jobs or
status by women. This can explain management's promotion or at least acceptance
of a constantly renegotiated gender division of labour (Game & Pringle
1983) which keeps women in the inferior jobs at the cost of overall efficiency.
How can the
conventional application of the merit principle be compatible with the sort of
bias consequent on the routine exercise of power to serve group interests? Let
me look in turn at examinations, credentials and job performance.
The strengths
and limitations of examinations in assessing merit have been studied in some
depth. Their advantages include uniformity and anonymity (of those taking an
examination to those marking it). But this does not remove the possibility of
cultural bias. Examinations usually select out those schooled in the
'cultural mainstream' and also those skilled in taking examinations, which is
again an indication of success in the dominant culture within the schooling
system.
Studies have
shown the class bias in IQ tests (Kamin 1974). The IQ, which is widely believed
to signify innate ability, is not able to explain educational and economic
inequalities (Bowles & Gintis 1976). A few decades ago, only a relatively
small fraction of children completed high school and therefore those who
competed for professional and managerial jobs were a select group, mostly from
better-off families. As progress through high school became more universal, it
seemed that everyone would be able to share in the 'common culture' sufficiently
to obtain equal opportunity through examinations. But as schooling has become
universalised, its focus has changed from preparation for elite careers to
inculcating middle-class culture (Collins 1979) - something which works better
for those with the appropriate class background and family support. Working
class boys, for example, typically resist this process (Willis 1977). In any
case, the outcome is culturally biased: those with the appropriate cultural
background will learn most readily and be able to show their skill on
ostensibly neutral examinations.
Another
problem with examinations is that most of them have limited relevance to the
job, since jobs are quite different from answering questions. The only really
relevant examination is an 'on-the-job' test, which displaces the assessment of
merit to job performance.
Even if these
problems with examinations could be overcome, there is the problem of their
limited use. Typically, examinations are used as a screening mechanism in
recruitment, but once inside a bureaucracy, tenure is reasonably secure. A true
merit system would have regular open competitions, in which any person could
vie for any post. In only a few occupations, such as competitive sports and the
performing arts, is there a continuous and public examination of talent and
performance which affects a person's standing and career. Significantly, these
occupations are notable for their absence of formal examinations, and for the
relative ease with which individuals can establish themselves without
credentials.
Credentials
are a second major way of measuring merit. Credentials, like examinations,
commonly have little relevance to the job. Most of the skills for professional
and managerial positions are learned on the job (Collins 1979). The role of
formal education in reproducing and legitimating the social class structure has
been widely documented (Bowles & Gintis 1976). Credentials are the symbols
and currency of competence, but numerous studies have shown that there is
little connection between educational performance and job performance. I have
talked to many students who comment, 'this course has nothing to do with my
job, but I need the degree to get a promotion.'
The use of
credentials to judge merit is not just to rely on irrelevant measures. Rather,
the cultural and gender biases in educational systems serve as a filter which
legitimates unequal outcomes. The social biases inherent in credentialing are
most pronounced in poor countries such as Kenya or Sri Lanka in which qualifications
are the means by which individuals can join the privileged western sector of
government employment. Students desperately cram down irrelevant information in
an attempt to snare one of the few high-paying jobs at the end. The result is a
massively wasteful educational system, irrelevant to the needs of the bulk of
the population, which serves to justify and promote the imposition of an
inappropriate western model of development. The problems with credentialing are
not so dramatic in richer countries, but many of the same problems exist (Dore
1976).
There are
problems with using examinations or credentials to assess merit. What then
about job performance? The first point here is that it is very hard to separate
out the performance of an individual worker within a bureaucracy (Collins 1979;
Emery & Emery 1974). Work is embedded in the organisational context. It is
done within overall policies and procedures set from above. It requires
cooperation with other people and resources provided by other groups. Above
all, performance depends on working as part of an overall system, on making the
whole operation go along more smoothly. Who is to say what was a particular
individual's contribution?
This question
is a key one. The answer of course is that it is those people in the top
positions who evaluate performance. This gives them the opportunity to judge on
the basis of conformity to the cultural norms of the organisation. The concept
of 'political labour' is a valuable one here (Collins 1979). Much of the
activity in bureaucracies and professions, especially in the higher echelons,
consists of interacting with others through conversations, committee meetings,
lunches and so forth. What is happening is a continual process of 'social
negotiation' over preferences, policies and alignments. The status of any
individual is at stake in this process. Those who play the game poorly, or opt
out entirely, are liable to lose out in some reshuffle or power play. Others
are able to forge alliances and mobilise resources to promote the interests of
themselves and those similar to them (Kanter 1977). The problem here is that
political labour, or in other words playing the game within organisations, is
something which depends sensitively on possessing the right cultural attributes
and resources. Verbal skill, personal attributes and social compatibility are
important.
The
importance of political labour means that it is difficult for cultural
outsiders to get ahead. This mean women, ethnic minorities, nonconformists or
indeed anyone falling outside the standard mould in a particular organisation.
Of course, organisations vary in their cultural style. In some cases a
particular group, such as graduates of a particular university, constitute the
in-group. In other cases personal attributes, such as a hard-driving
entrepreneurship - which can be closely linked to gender and class background -
may be most important. The point is that the cultural milieu of the
organisation is not neutral, but rather favours some groups over others.
A further
problem is that most assessments of merit are confounded with simultaneous
assessments of 'loyalty' and 'fitting in': whether a person gets along with
workmates and superiors, is unlikely to rock the boat, associates with the
right people, etc. This type of conformity is especially prized by
organisational elites, since an uncommitted employee is a potential leader of
or trigger for wider opposition. In evaluations of workers, loyalty in this
sense is typically a prime consideration, often completely overwhelming the
formal merits of a person who is perceived as difficult. Convincing people of
one's suitability is of course a crucial part of political labour, and is
inextricably linked with gender, class, ethnicity and other ascribed characteristics.
This point
about political labour can be made clearer by looking at the performance of
academics, who work in a more professionalised and less bureaucratised system
in which achievement of individuals can be judged according to teaching and research.
Teaching can be ignored here, since it is rarely judged and is not treated as
important in career advancement. Research performance on the other hand is
supposedly quite important, and can be judged by the public record of
publications.
In practice,
research productivity is not nearly so important in career advancement as
commonly believed. For example, Lionel S. Lewis has shown that a much more
significant factor is years of service (Lewis 1975; Lewis & Doyno 1983;
Lewis & Gregorio 1984; Lewis et al. 1979). How can the apparently objective
record of research be compatible with biases arising from systems of power?
There are several factors.
Firstly, in
research teams, the supervisor or team leader often takes undue credit for the
work of subordinates. This is even more common in bureaucracies. Among public
servants I have talked to, it is commonly taken as a fact of life that some
superiors will claim or attempt to claim credit for the work of subordinates.
Secondly, credit for research work depends on being in the right place at the
right time. The same contribution is likely to be given much more attention and
credit if the author is at the right university and known by the key people in
the field. Those scholars who are too young, too old, women, in minor
institutions or in the wrong field will be ignored. Work is judged according to
who did it, not solely on the basis of the work itself (Caplow & McGee,
1958).
Thirdly,
people look almost solely at research outputs, and not at the inputs to achieve
them. Many male academics receive major career support from their wives
(Papanek 1973). Young men who have had full support from wives are deemed more
successful than somewhat older women with the same record of performance who
have devoted significant time to housework and child rearing. Fourthly,
appointments and promotions depend only partly on research performance. Also
important are fitting in socially, working in a suitable speciality and having
credentials from the right places. Finally, dissidents - those who do research
or teaching or make public statements that challenge the interests of powerful
groups, especially within academia itself - often encounter severe difficulties
in their careers (Martin et al. 1986).
What is in
operation is a highly biased system in which particularistic practices are
justified by the merit principle. The widespread belief that publication is the
key to success in academia testifies to the importance that merit has in
legitimating academic position and power. This is compatible with system bias
through the means noted above: performance is attributed to individuals even
when much credit is due to subordinates or spouses, and perceptions of
performance are shot through with distortions due to the current distribution
of status and power.
There is
really little hope of overcoming these biases by a 'true' application of the
merit principle, because there are no neutral judges who sit outside the
academic system. For example, judgements of academic merit partly depend on how
central a contribution is to the recognised core of the discipline. This would
not be a problem, except that judgements of what the 'core' is depend on the
outcome of continual power struggle between individuals and groups who have
their own status and power at stake in the struggle. Performing successfully
means adapting to the conception of the discipline which is promulgated by the
most powerful figures and groups in the discipline. Of course, these
individuals and groups promote a vision which puts them in the prime positions.
In other words, the assessment of academic merit within a discipline depends on
the outcome of a power struggle in which the criteria of merit itself are a key
stake.
All this is
quite compatible with continued bias against women, ethnic minorities, members
of the working class and so forth. For example, scholars who choose to develop
forms of feminist analysis are almost always seen as marginal to an academic
discipline. The elites of the discipline define the essence of its study in
male terms or simply in terms which they, who happen to be men, also happen to
control.
The
importance of power struggles in academia, in which merit is a tool rather than
an objective assessment, throws light on struggles in more bureaucratised
organisations. Performance within bureaucracies is much more embedded in the
organisational context than it is in academia. Unlike academia, it is not easy
to appeal to experts in other organisations to judge performance by assessing
publications. The good graces of supervisors, the cooperation of co-workers and
the availability of support systems for non-work life are all vital.
All this
means that performance must be judged by a 'merit system' which includes an
enlightened evaluation of these factors. But good intentions and enlightened
assessments are hardly sufficient to establish a merit system. As long as the
organisational resources are available to be used in power struggles, then they
will be used to maintain and extend the power of those who are best able to
deploy them.
Within
bureaucracies, the Weberian model of rational administration is itself a
powerful rhetorical and ideological resource for maintaining commitment to the
organisation. The belief in bureaucracy as administration is favoured and
promoted especially by those who are successful in the system, since it
attributes that success to individual performance rather than to being on the
winning side of a power struggle reliant on cultural resources.
In summary,
individual productivity has a relatively low impact on career performance in
large-scale organisations. Advancement depends greatly on jockeying for
position, for example by forming alliances, obtaining personal credit for
collective work and increasing the evaluation of particular types of
contributions. In this struggle for position, resources provided by culture -
namely the dominant white middle-class male culture - are vital.
While the
reality is that the struggle for advancement is basically part of a wider power
struggle, it is no longer acceptable to admit the importance of system biases
in an era in which egalitarian sentiments are strong. Hence it is very
convenient to justify decisions on the basis of merit - for example academic
credentials - because this legitimates inequality. This is the basis of the
defence of 'merit' by traditionalists who in practice oppose changes in the
gender and ethnic composition of hierarchies. The supporters of legislated
equal opportunity on the other hand recognise the biases built into normal
selection processes and therefore push for 'true' adherence to the merit
principle, in other words merit stripped of its links to gender stereotypes,
middle-class culture and so forth. This is the explanation of the paradox of merit:
that both opponents and proponents of equal opportunity make appeals to it.
What then
should the harried equal opportunity officer or personnel manager do with the
merit principle? Is it simply a tool of those already in power? Or is it, as
usually thought, a tool of those who are actually achieving valuable things in
their work? The answer is that merit is a tool for both groups at the same
time.
To
recapitulate: under the ideal-typical conception of bureaucracy as a system of
rational administration, merit can be used unambiguously as a measure of
performance, and affirmative action then can be used to assure true equal
opportunity. I have argued that the picture of bureaucracy and professions as
political systems is more realistic. In this picture, 'merit' is not something
judged in the abstract, but rather is something continually created, debated
and negotiated through the social processes of the organisation. Those
individuals and groups with the greatest power are in the best position to shape
the conception of merit to serve their own ends. But, at the same time, others
with less power can argue for a different interpretation of merit which
promotes their interests.
In this view,
what is called merit is a tool in the power struggles within bureaucracies and
professions. Those promoting the interests of disadvantaged groups should not
assume that an argument based on merit will be taken on face value. Rather, an
argument promoting the interests of disadvantaged individuals or groups, based
on claims about merit, is part of a political move to change the distribution
of power, in either a minor or major way. It should be expected that some of
the merit arguments will be contested, less by direct rejection than by a
different interpretation of merit. The change in general definitions of merit
over the years (Stanton 1978) - for example from legislation against
discrimination to affirmative action, and then to comparable work - is a
consequence of the challenges mounted by blacks and women. Interpretations of
merit are intrinsically political, just as are bureaucracies and professions,
in the sense that power is always involved rather than just rationality and
formal procedures.
If merit is a
tool or resource used by different groups in struggles within bureaucracies and
professions, the question arises, who can most easily use this tool? Tools,
whether butter knives, nuclear weapons or ideas, are not equally useful for
performing tasks. Butter knives are more suited to cutting butter than are
chain saws. The idea of merit in many circumstances is of great value to
disadvantaged groups: the most blatant forms of discrimination are harder to
sustain. But merit is not a perfect tool for creating equal opportunity: it has
a fundamental flaw.
The most
massive barrier to application of the merit principle in bureaucracies is the
division of labour. It is virtually impossible for a cleaner or a
steno-secretary to move into top management - or even to move from her position
- no matter how well she does her job. In any situation where there are large
differences between jobs, the problem arises that people can't be judged as
unsuitable until they have been given a chance in the other job. The
incongruities involved in actually putting people into jobs of completely
different status forms the basis of the humour in the story of a millionaire
and a pauper who change life situations, for example in the film Trading
Places.
in some
bureaucracies a limited degree of job rotation is practised. This certainly has
the advantage of allowing individuals to show their ability in a variety of
positions. But usually job rotation is only carried out with tasks on a similar
level. Managing directors are not rotated to be gardeners, nor vice versa. In
practice, many workers are refused any real chance to move out of dead-end
positions.
The main way
this is justified is through appeal to the merit principle! For example,
typists are refused opportunities to undertake research positions because they
have neither the right credentials nor appropriate experience.
The usual
pattern then is one in which credentials and experience are used to justify
appointments and promotions. The problem is that the credentials usually have
little relevance to the job, and previous experience says little about a
person's ability to handle a different type of job. One example is teaching.
The theoretical, classroom part of teacher training is notorious for being
irrelevant to actual teaching. (Apprentice teaching, essentially learning on
the job, is literally the exception which proves the rule.) Once on the job,
some teachers are promoted to administrative positions. There is no logical
reason why excellence in teaching would be a basis for promotion to administration,
even if excellence in teaching were taken as the criterion of merit (male
ambition seems a more common reason for promotion among teachers).
This brings
me to what I believe is a fundamental flaw in the usual conception of the merit
principle. The application of 'merit' assumes not only that individual
achievement can be measured, but also that the existing occupational slots are
suitable for the allocation of meritorious workers to them. In other words, the
merit principle assumes that the slots are fixed while people are chosen for
them - not vice versa.
The
difficulties in this can be illustrated by a not-so-hypothetical example.
Assume that there are 10 people working in a section. They are all literate and
have an average potential for learning. In a bureaucratic system, the 10 people
are ranked 1 to 10: one person administers from the top while those at the
bottom do routine work requiring little or no initiative. The person at the top
develops a broad view of the operations, hobnobs with corresponding figures in
other sections, obtains inside information about the organisation and about the
other workers, and gains increasing confidence and self-assurance through the
exercise of power and from the deference of subordinates. The point of this is
that the initial distribution of workers into slots could almost have been done
at random, and the result would have been the same. The power system creates
the very differences in information, confidence and performance which are used
to justify it.
In practice,
the workers are not allocated at random to different slots. White middle-class
men hold most of the positions of power, and they use that power to maintain
themselves and those like them in the top positions. The merit principle helps
to sustain this system by justifying it; the merit principle may be the best
justification yet for a highly stratified society (Young 1958).
But to be
fair, it is not the merit principle which lies behind stratification. The most
important support for system bias is the hierarchy itself. Resources are given
to small groups which they can use to maintain their privilege. It is
inevitable that groups with more cultural resources - whether this is maleness
or ethnic dominance - will use those resources to gain organisational power,
and use organisational power to promote group interests. While insisting on the
application of a 'true' merit principle has the potential to make inroads into
this system, a more far-reaching approach is to restructure the job hierarchy
and division of labour.
The standard
solution is worker self-management, in which workers collectively decide on how
they will organise their work and carry it out. There can still be a division
of labour, but it is one that is freely chosen (and it is likely to be a
division that changes more or less frequently). Worker self-management needs to
be accompanied by job redesign, in which the technology and the organisational
decision-making process are set up in a way which fosters equality and participation
by all workers (Bolweg 1976; Emery & Thorsrud 1976; Herbst 1976; Hunnius et
al. 1973; Roberts 1973; Wilson 1974).
I have
claimed that the power systems in bureaucracies and professions generate
differentials in information, confidence and performance. What is the evidence
for this claim? Actually, the best evidence comes from experiences in worker
self-management, in which workers are given the chance to demonstrate their
capacity in a supportive environment. Most people are able to learn the complex
skills of driving a car or managing a household. Similarly, most people should
be able to learn carpentry and learn to manage a carpentry business.
What would
merit mean in a workplace in which the workers collectively controlled their
work? In such a situation, merit could be recognised even though performance
was embedded in the work organisation. For example, some workers might be able
to do certain jobs quicker or more elegantly. Indeed, it would be easier to
assess merit in many cases since different workers would be regularly doing the
same tasks, for example on a rotating basis. It would also be easier to assess
merit because many of those doing the assessing would have recently done the
same tasks themselves.
Let me now
compare the definitions of merit under hierarchy and self-management. The usual
definition is built around picking the individual who will perform 'best' in a
given job situation. If meritocracy is justified on the basis of its greater
productivity, this usual definition is a micro principle: merit considerations
apply to each job assignment in isolation from other jobs. A slightly wider
picture arises from the aim of maximising productivity from a whole ensemble
of jobs. People are assigned to jobs in a way which maximises productivity for
the full set of jobs. This macro principle of merit on occasion may violate the
micro principle. The macro principle again assumes a fixed distribution of jobs
(Daniels 1978).
Under
self-management, jobs are not fixed. Rather, the design principles for work are
themselves something to be democratically decided. Under the project of
socio-technical design (Herbst 1974), merit is just as usefully attached to the
organisation of work as to individuals. The most 'meritorious work organisation'
is the one which maximises the performance, satisfaction and personal growth of
all individuals, within the constraints of current knowledge and resources.
(Some might prefer a maximin principle in which the aim is to maximise,
relative to feasible targets, the performance, satisfaction and personal growth
of the person least advanced in these areas. The maximin principle is designed
to avoid a utilitarian maximisation which perpetuates inequalities.) For
example, socio-technical design typically implies elimination or automation of
jobs which are satisfying to no one, rather than automation on the basis of
profits and material productivity.
Although the
introduction of self-management is often associated with lowering productivity,
actually the converse is often the case (Melman 1958). Self-management can
increase conventional productivity - not to mention worker satisfaction -
because the capacities and enthusiasm of workers are more effectively used.
Another way to look at this is that hierarchical structures carry a burden of
inefficiency, namely the managerial and technological expense and
organisational rigidity required to keep workers in their place (Braverman
1974). As often as not, the productivity loss required to maintain hierarchies
is greater than the loss entailed in self-managerial decision-making processes.
One other
point is worth making: there is no reason why merit and a more responsible
position should automatically lead to greater rewards for a person (Daniels
1978; Luard 1979, pp. 89-75). Under a meritocracy justified by productivity,
the only differentials in rewards would be those necessary to motivate workers,
and these would be far less than those in present bureaucracies. According to
the political perspective on bureaucracy and professions, the reason why merit
and reward are conventionally linked is that those with power use that power to
increase their income. Where the medical profession is powerful, as in the
United States and Australia, average incomes of doctors are high. Where medical
workers are more subordinate to the state, as in the Soviet Union, their
average incomes are closer to the average wage.
Under
self-management, there would be no reason for meritorious performance to lead
to greater formal power to tell other workers what to do, nor to gain
disproportionate economic rewards. That would not be compatible with the
principle of self-management, and in any case it would not be necessary. Those
workers who worked harder or came up with better ideas would be naturally
recognised by the others for the value of their contributions. The reward for
good performance would be the performance itself, more influence (since others
would respect the person's views) and more recognition.
Self-management
is not an alternative sitting on the shelf waiting to be applied should the
decision be made. Rather, the operation of self-managing systems would depend on
the political processes used to establish and maintain them, just as in the
case of the operation of bureaucracies and professions. Still to be further
studied and developed through practice are the limits of consensus
decision-making (Mansbridge 1980), the role of community control (Morris &
Hess 1975) and the nature of wider political decision-making (Benello &
Roussopoulos 1971). Self-management is part of a particular strategy for social
change. For example, whereas many liberal feminists use the merit principle to
help the cause of women within bureaucracies, some radical feminists favour
self-management as an alternative to bureaucracy itself (Ferguson 1984).
The
alternative of worker self-management throws light on the assumptions
underlying the usual use of the merit principle. Applied to advancement within
a bureaucratic system, merit is inevitably linked to the exercise of power. The
evaluation of merit is shaped by the current elites and is also used to justify
the hierarchy itself. Those pushing for equal opportunity through application
of 'true' merit have an uphill battle because they must accept the hierarchy
and division of labour which give power to those groups with the greatest
cultural resources. Merit in this situation can never be a neutral principle to
judge contenders in the occupational power struggle. Rather, merit is a tool in
the power struggle itself.
For those who
are pushing for rights for women, ethnic minorities, the handicapped and so
forth, it is important to realise that using merit as a lever for the
advancement of individuals has important limits. It does nothing for the bulk
of workers who are relegated to dead-end jobs and occupations, and it may help
to legitimate the whole system of inequality and privilege. Instead of applying
the merit principle only to individuals, it should also be applied to work
structures. Instead of workers being judged according to how they fulfil fixed
job specifications, work structures should be evaluated according to how they
allow the greatest use and development of each person's potential contribution.
The challenge is to turn this vision into a practical program for
organisational change (Williams 1982).
Hester
Eisenstein and two anonymous referees provided valuable comments on an earlier
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Accepted
for publication December 1986