Successful people acknowledging how luck has helped them along the way
Tailwinds is a concept for a campaign to challenge the dominant meritocratic media and political narrative. The meritocratic myth holds back action to tackle inequality by arguing that wealth and poverty are solely the result of merit, or its absence. By asking successful people to publicly talk about how luck has smoothed their path, we aim to undermine this narrative and so to weaken some of the political and media resistance to taking action to tackle inequality in the UK.
Why
Huge increases in wealth in the UK in recent years have combined with high levels of wealth inequality to produce a record ‘wealth gap’; the richest 50 families have more wealth than the poorest half of the population, while nearly three in 10 children live in poverty. Wealth inequality undermines economic growth, social cohesion and democracy, in large part because it undermines the social contract, devaluing hard work by making what you own more important than what you earn, and depriving people of opportunities to exercise agency, maximise their potential and contribute to society. While 85% of the British public are concerned about inequality, few politicians see tackling inequality as a priority.
A key blocker to progress is the grip that the meritocratic narrative has on many people – the idea that ‘you can make it if you try’, that success is down to individual talent and hard work. This idea legitimises inequality and undermines actions to tackle it, including government policies to share wealth across society and to reduce the negative impacts of wealth inequality. Although the meritocratic narrative is increasingly contradicted by observable reality, it retains a strong hold in the UK. The best way to counter it is for people who have achieved material success to acknowledge the ways in which they have benefited from luck as well as merit - that factors beyond their control have played a role in getting them to where they are.