Rhetoric on the right, conditioned reflexes on the left: the debate on merit

The usual response to inequality is redistribution, but another type of response is instead that of increasing social mobility and there are two areas in which to intervene: school and competition.

While the war in Ukraine shows no sign of ending, inflation is on the rise and a new recession is upon us, the Italian political debate has no better choice than to rage over the renaming of the Ministry of Education into “Ministry of Education and Merit”. A free and surreal debate that reveals a lot about some actors on the political scene. The juxtaposition between education and merit triggered, from the left, a conditioned reflex that branded the initiative as a class and elite. And so a minimal cabotage political marketing operation unwittingly ended up showing nerves. Some facts help to bring order.