Convening Yale: A Conversation with Prof. Daniel Markovits YC’00, YLS ‘91. The Meritocracy Trap.

The meritocratic ideal—that people should get ahead based on their own accomplishments rather than their parents’ social class—has become our age’s literal common sense. Both Democrats and Republicans, even as they agree on almost nothing else, insist that meritocracy gives everyone fair shot at success and place it at the heart of the American Dream. However, Markovits argues that meritocracy is a sham.
After earning a B.A. in Mathematics, summa cum laude from Yale University, Daniel Markovits received a British Marshall Scholarship to study in England, where he was awarded an M.Sc. in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics from the L.S.E. and a B.Phil. and D.Phil. in Philosophy from the University of Oxford. Markovits then returned to Yale to study law and, after clerking for the Honorable Guido Calabresi, joined the faculty at Yale.