The Atlantic - 09.2019

14 SEPTEMBER 2019 THE ATLANTIC

• SOCIETY

MERITOCRACY’S

MISERABLE

WINNERS

The system that’s widened

the gap between the rich

and everyone else has also

turned elite life into an

endless, terrible competition.

Maybe there’s a way out.

BY DANIEL MARKOVITS

Illustrations by EDMON DE HARO

IDEAS & PROVOCATIONS

SEPTEMBER 2019

DISPATCHES

You may be skeptical that an electronic jingle can make doing the dishes a life-affirming endeavor—or even bind you,

emotionally, to your dishwasher. But companies are betting otherwise. — Laura Bliss, p. 22

IN THE SUMMER OF 1987, I gradu-

ated from a public high school in Austin,

Texas, and headed northeast to attend

Yale. I then spent nearly 15 years study-

ing at various universities—the London

School of Economics, the University of

Oxford, Harvard, and finally Yale Law

School—picking up a string of degrees

along the way. Today, I teach at Yale Law,