Fat Cat Meritocracy

There was an interesting discussion between the crime writer PD James and Mark Thompson, Director-General of the BBC on R4’s Today programme this morning (NB You have seven days in which to follow up the link if you want to listen to it). The meritocracy debate is something which we discuss a lot in Sociology because it’s on all the syllabuses; but my impression is that when the debate leaves the hallowed grounds of the sociology class or the lecture hall, there seems little debate. There seems to be a considerable, weighty consensus that we live in a meritocracy.

This - or so it seemed to me - was evident in the interchange of views between PD James and Mark Thomson. PD James challenged Thomson on the high salaries paid to top executives at the BBC. Thomson came out with the familiar justification that such salaries were justified and necessary in order to get “the best people for the job”, and indeed, to prevent these individuals seeking high salaries elsewhere.

I was rather disappointed though with the way PD James countered this position. James simply attacked the idea that these ‘top people’ would go elsewhere, but didn’t pursue the thought any further.

I would really like to hear or read a thorough criticism of meritocracy in the UK media, but we never seem to get that. I’m not suggesting for one moment that there’s a conspiracy; perhaps its just that many of the great and the good haven’t studied sociology?

Anyway, for the record, here are a few points in contradiction of the Mark Thomson viewpoint, albeit expressed in rather ‘unsociological’ language. Hopefully readers might be able to use the link and these points as a way of re-framing the meritocracy debate.

The argument about high pay which says that it is necessary in order to get ‘the best people’ is self-serving and perhaps arrogant. There are plenty of people with the requisite skills to do these ‘difficult’ jobs. There only appears to be a very limited pool of talent if you take the myopic view that only those individuals who have reached a senior level just below the ‘top’ and have ‘relevant’ experience are eligible for top posts.

To say that the BBC or any other organisation needs to pay high salaries to get the best is not only self-serving; it also incorrectly assumes that we live in a meritocracy. In a fairer society we would simply ask whether the people doing the job are good enough or not - no rhetoric about ‘the best people’. And we wouldn’t need to make exaggerated claims about the salaries required to attract or reward those individuals.