Daniel Markovits is Guido Calabresi Professor of Law at Yale Law School and founding director of the Center for the Study of Private Law.
"Ambitious and disturbing. . . Markovits forcefully interrupts the comfortable bath of self-flattery in which our well-graduated professionals pass their hours." - New York Times Book Review
"An imaginative new book that will prompt endless debate in the
faculty lounge, the country-club tap room, and the family dinner
table. . . a book that will jolt and provoke the reading public . .
. Markovits produces shocking figures about the yawning wealth gap
on leafy campuses." -- The Boston Globe "The Meritocracy
Trap defines a central issue of our age: the rise of new elites
who, unlike their aristocratic forebears, seem to have the moral
high ground. The system is rigged in a different way, but it's
still rigged all right." - Sunday Times "We've been waiting
for the Big Book that explains America's wrong turn. Daniel
Markovits has supplied it. The Meritocracy Trap is a
sociological masterpiece - a damning indictment of parenting and
schools, an unflattering portrait of a ruling class and the economy
it invented. Far too many readers will recognize themselves in his
brilliant critique, and they will feel a rush of anger, a pang of
regret, and a burning desire to remake the system." --Franklin
Foer, author of World Without Mind
"Provocatively weighing in on growing inequality, Daniel Markovits
weaves a disturbing tale of merit and social division. Pulling no
punches, he warns us that meritocracy is a trap, fetishizing
certain skills and endless assessments. Markovitz shows - in
exquisite detail - the perverse link between an upper class
education and elite jobs and how together they enrich the few,
while devaluing and demoralizing the rest." --Jerry Brown,
former governor of California "At once wide-ranging and
rigorous, subtle and penetrating, Markovits's book is revelatory
both in its particulars and in its big picture. Anyone who wants to
argue about the merits of meritocracy must take account of this
book." --Kwame Anthony Appiah, Professor of Philosophy and Law,
NYU and author of The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity
"Daniel Markovits has written a bold, brave critique of the
meritocracy-backed version of inequality that prevails today. He
argues persuasively that meritocracy is destructive and
demoralizing for winners and losers alike. Challenging conventional
wisdom, Markovits shows that technological change is not a fact of
nature that happens to increase the value of highly credentialed
workers; instead, the prevalence of credentialed elites calls forth
technologies that bias the labor market in their favor and hollow
out the middle class. This is a splendid book that should prompt
soul-searching among meritocrats." --Michael J. Sandel, author
of What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets "The system
is rigged. And the culprit, Daniel Markovits argues, is
meritocracy--the same ideal that was supposed to promote fairness.
Brilliant, lucid, and urgent, The Meritocracy Trap exposes a
national catastrophe." --James Forman Jr., Pulitzer
Prize-winning author of Locking Up Our
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