It's time to abandon the cruelty of meritocracy | Steven Pearlstein

Because of heritability and upbringing, there can never be genuine equality of opportunity

No moral intuition is more hard-wired into Americans' conception of their country as a just society than equality of opportunity. While some may be rich and others poor, we are willing to accept the market's judgment about the distribution of income because it rewards talent, hard work and risk-taking rather than some unfair or arbitrary advantage.

"We are true to our creed," declared Barack Obama in his second inaugural address, "when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anyone else, because she is an American."

We have created a meritocratic aristocracy

The luck of parental lottery can never be overcome

Steven Pearlstein is a Pulitzer-prize winning economics columnist at the Washington Post and Robinson Professor of Public Affairs at George Mason University. This essay is drawn from his new book, Can American Capitalism Survive? (St Martin's Press)