AN UNPRECEDENTED INEQUALITY Meritocracy’s two components, having developed together, now interact as expressions of a single, integrated whole. Elaborate elite education produces superordinate workers, who possess a powerful work ethic and exceptional skills. These workers then induce a transformation in the labor market that favors their own elite skills, and at the same time dominate the lucrative new jobs that the transformation creates. Together these two transformations idle mid-skilled workers and engage the new elite, making it both enormously productive and extravagantly paid. The spoils of victory grow in tandem with the intensity of meritocratic competition. Indeed, the top 1 percent of earners, and even the top onetenth of 1 … Continue reading Daniel Markovits