In 1931 James Truslow Adams published The Epic of America. In it he defined the American dream as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”
He also described a social order in which each person would be recognized by others “for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”
President James Garfield was assassinated by Charles Guiteau, a man who believed he should have received a government appointment.
Congress responded. On January 16, 1883, President Chester Arthur signed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. It required that federal jobs be awarded on merit, and that employees be selected through competitive exams.
On July 13, 2012, President Barack Obama spoke at a campaign event in Roanoke, Virginia. “If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help,” he said. Later he said: “If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” Democrats said the line was taken out of context and pointed to the words before it: “Somebody invested in roads and bridges.”
Republicans answered at their national convention in Tampa. Some form of “We Built That” became the theme of its first night, and major speakers returned to it.
In December 2012 the sociologist Lauren Rivera published a study of hiring at elite professional service firms in the American Sociological Review. It drew on 120 interviews with employers. “Employers sought candidates who were not only competent but also culturally similar to themselves in terms of leisure pursuits, experiences, and self-presentation styles.”
Such concerns “often outweighed concerns about absolute productivity.” Evaluators described an “airport test”: whether they would want to be stuck in an airport with the candidate.
In 2005 Tiziana Casciaro and Miguel Sousa Lobo reported in the Harvard Business Review on how people in four organizations chose whom to work with. “Personal feelings played a more important role in forming work relationships.” If someone is strongly disliked, “it’s almost irrelevant whether or not she is competent.”
Their conclusion: “a little extra likability goes a longer way than a little extra competence.”
At Harvard, “over 33 percent” of legacy applicants, the children of alumni, were admitted to the classes of 2014 through 2019. The figure comes from filings by the plaintiffs in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. They said legacies were admitted at roughly five times the rate of other applicants. Harvard called their methods “deeply flawed.”
In July 2023 the Education Department opened an investigation of Harvard’s donor and legacy preferences. Amherst, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon and Wesleyan had ended legacy admissions.
It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Connections count as much as knowledge.
People person. Someone who is good with others and enjoys working with them.
Culture fit. A match between a candidate and the values and style of a team. It is a common reason to hire or reject.
Plays well with others. Once said of small children, now said of colleagues.
Well connected. Knows the right people.
In January 1968 Robert K. Merton of Columbia University published “The Matthew Effect in Science” in the journal Science. The name comes from the Gospel of Matthew: “For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance.” Merton described “the accruing of large increments of peer recognition to scientists of great repute.”
A Nobel laureate in physics put it simply: “the man who’s best known gets more credit, an inordinate amount of credit.”
The biologists R. C. Lewontin and J. L. Hubby described what happened to their joint work. Population geneticists, they wrote, “have consistently regarded Lewontin as the senior member of the team and given him undue credit for what was a completely collaborative work.”
Americans apply a two-word adjective to their business heroes. He is self-made. The phrase was strong enough to survive being used by a man born into slavery.
Frederick Douglass delivered a lecture called “Self-Made Men” beginning in 1859. His definition was severe. Self-made men “owe little or nothing to birth, relationship, friendly surroundings.”
Douglass gave one explanation for success. Self-made men, he said, are “men of work.”
Americans praise the self-reliant with an impossible image. It is “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.”
The phrase began as a joke about the impossible. It appears in an 1834 newspaper. In 1860 a writer compared the mind analyzing itself to a man lifting himself by his own bootstraps.
The joke faded. By 1922 the phrase meant improving yourself by your own efforts. Today it is said without irony as a plan for success.