You don’t think there’s an advantage to society as a whole to help people do better when they can’t quite, for whatever reason, do it on their own? Especially kids?
No.
Sounds messed up, doesn't it? But no, I don't think society is better off for a perfectly meritorious college admissions nor by perfectly meritorious employment. Even the idea is damaging.
Ok. Damn. Quite the statement, I better back that up somehow, and I have no links, so bear with me. This will take a bit.
First, I don't believe the premise of the article. It seems to be a nice narrative, that certainly rings true enough, if you don't have time to read or think, it's good enough. I mean, it's a magazine, they only get so in depth, and they are dealing with a customer base that is more interested in having the approved opinions and the approval of their echo chamber than in accuracy. If this isn't clear, read one of the many shreddings this bunk has already received. I'm not a published author, but it seems like a bad thing when the guy who wrote the study you based your story on comes out and says he doesn't know how you got those numbers and that combining them that way is "misleading". Many of the 9.9% in the study are retirees and business owners, not Harvard law grads. Strangely, they didn't make the edit into the Atlantic.
But, aside from the fictional basis of the Atlantic, we have been talking about this as though it were a real problem, and meritocracy is a worthy subject in and of itself. So rather than beating on the article, I will talk about meritocracy.
Imagine a world of no meritocracy. It's not hard, it looks like the majority of human history. Every empire came close to fitting this description. Stable societies, no social mobility, and the only options for a change in a person's status was to leave the empire, or the rare event that was the equivalent of the gods intervening. So some meritocracy is good.
But also, try to imagine what a world of perfect meritocracy would look. No smart people left among the poor and disaffected. The smart folks are at the top. And... The guys at the top determine what is meritorious. Hmmm. Seems very similar to no meritocracy, doesn't it? But wait, it gets worse. The guys at the top aren't there because they had advantages, but because they are better. If you have any doubts, just.compare paystubs. In a perfectly meritorious society, the one who makes more money is the better person. In a world where empathy is in short supply, this seems like a way to cut off what little we have. After all, the primary objections to helping the poor today is that they aren't doing enough to help themselves. Imagine that the poors we're also objectively the lazy and the stupid, how much help would they get?
And, on an individual level, it is too my advantage to have lesser men as peers. Imagine that you went to school, competing for grades and seats with a very narrow range of almost equal peers. Now all you can really do to compete is work harder and longer, than all the other students who have the same strategy. Then get to work, and it's the same story. Soon you need a master's degree and have to work 60 hour weeks to be a barista. Because you aren't competing against the lost dumb kids of rich parents, you are competing against the meritorious equivalent of yourself.
I remember when I first worked in cabling, with a good friend. It was a small, family company, where the owner had hired all his family and friends and the rest of us, and it was very clear who was promotable, and who wasn't. One day, my friend said he wanted to make the promotional video for the company. "It would be great, some shots of the jobs, and guys working and partying together. Then a voiceover says: Are you a Par****? Are you related to a Par****? Friends with a Par****? If so, you will go far with Par*** Cable Company, the sky is the limit! If not, WHAT ARE DOING WATCHING A VIDEO, GET BACK TO WORK, SH!THEAD!" But the thing is, that nepotism was only a problem as long as we worked there. When, a few years later that owner went to jail for tax evasion, all those great leaders he hired had to find new careers. They couldn't cut it in a competitive environment in cabling. All those weak, simple guys were stopping me from moving up, there. But I had other places to go, where I could trade competence and hard work for more money. In a perfectly meritorious society, there's no place to go for a different set of what is meritorious.
My point is that meritocracy, as a spectrum, produces social mobility in the mid-range, and stultifying stability at each end. I have seen no evidence that moving toward a more meritorious society is going to increase social mobility, and the suggestion that the human urge to help our own offspring is in need of suppressing seems at best, poorly thought through.
No. As near as I can tell, this is a story for Harvard alumni to tell themselves as they get ready to go through another 16 hour day of eye bleeding spreadsheet work. Yeah, man, if the poors ever find out that they can't get into Harvard, they would run riot. We 9.9% rule this world!
As a former poor person, I would like to say that we already knew Harvard was closed to us, but thanks for thinking of us!