Letters: Nepotism: the rich man’s burden?

Dear Sir,

In the interests of keeping a balanced opinion on matters discussed in our Boar, I’ve taken it upon myself to reply to Calum Murray’s article “Nepotism: the rich man’s burden” (Issue 7, Volume 34) https://theboar.org/comment/2012/jan/25/nepotism-rich-mans-burden/)

In this article I will talk about the points in Murray’s article that I disagreed with. I do not have a magic solution or alternative for the current financial crisis, I only write because I think his argument has some flaws.

You begin your article by talking about the need for an impressive CV and how paid internships are hard to come by. Yes they are, this is true and yes it is true that they are a 21st century slave-trade in which the intern is not paid.

However, the real injustice of this is the fact that only already well-enumerated people can afford to live whilst working for free. The existence of unpaid internships makes it difficult for poorer people to “climb the ladder” and I’d argue that you can extend this as far as it keeps them out. For example, there is £18.8million worth of unpaid labour done by interns at Westminster. Yet, in order to advance your political career, one must undergo an unpaid internship before the opportunity of a paid position arises. No one can afford to work a full working week unpaid and still pay London rents, unless your family is rich enough to subsidize you. Therefore, unpaid internships facilitate social inequality.

Nepotism can be seen as a way of counterbalancing that, a backdoor, for the individual, however this does not justify it as it implies accidents of birth dictate value rather than actual merit. To answer ‘if nepotism is so obviously unjust, why does it continue?’, it is because the question of morality does not affect the utility of nepotism. It endures because well, you answer yourself: ‘and why am I still going to grab this opportunity with both hands?’ — self-interest prevails.

It must be noted here that I do not disagree with the idea of nepotism: it seems to be quite a natural way of doing things. However institutionalized nepotism is unfair, because it is usually at the expense of a better, but less well-connected candidate and something that, ideally, should be addressed. We can also argue it is harmful to the institution itself. In your article you seem to have conflated the idea of nepotism, not necessarily all bad, with the institution of it, which tends to corruption and what gives nepotism its bad name.

You then suggest that it is not nepotism itself which is a problem but an ‘asymmetry of connections available to the rich and the poor’. This is something that I cannot see being addressed that easily because a call-centre worker will rarely hook up with someone who owns oil. Therefore I think you’re right to say that society suffers from inequality between rich and poor, but wrong to use this as a defense of nepotism because nepotism facilitates this very inequality.

But you then use this as justification to make your most outrageous assertion yet: ‘but if it is the result of pre-existing structural conditions and outside of my control, is it really so wrong to use it?’ Well, yes, it is wrong; if you weren’t already in a socially privileged position, then you wouldn’t have written an article entitled “Nepotism: A Rich Man’s Burden”, which is just an exorcism of your guilt. Don’t feel bad, you can’t help being lucky, just don’t ever try and say it’s a ‘burden’ to be well-connected and well-off.

However, just because it is wrong does not mean you will not do it. I cannot blame you for taking your opportunities, since the fact that Britain has the 3rd highest income inequality among rich countries does not have anything to do with your actions.

Your argument then turns towards support of “capitalism with a conscience” when you state the need to ‘harness the powers of capitalism to enfranchise the deprived’. This argument has its supporters. It is also a whole other debate and one I do not want to get too bogged down in. I will say that I think ‘nice capitalism’ is an idealistic proposal because it implies there is a common good. I’d like there to be a common good, but the type of capitalism we find ourselves in now is built on the belief in the individual prospering rather than a non-profitable overarching common good prospering.

In a way the fact you’ve written this article is very worrying because we both have agreed that nepotism is unfair. It is a Victorian notion that should have been eradicated a long time ago by meritocracy. However, given the way the economy has gone, we’re all now relying more heavily on nepotism. That’s essentially why you wrote it, isn’t it? You’re defending it to help assuage final-year worries, or at least knock the guilt out of it, should an opportunity fall. The fact is that, now, we are all being forced back in to begging for an unpaid internship and having to have a well-placed family connection. How bad has it got for undergraduates at the University of Warwick, and indeed undergraduates all over the country, that we have to rely on nepotism?

But before we drift in to an apathetic gloom again, we can draw one positive from it. In that, despite our disagreements, we both believe in the kindness of others to help us along in the world. Helping each other out is something we have to rely on now, seeing as everything has been so royally cocked-up. It’s an idea that perhaps gives us some self-confidence and pulls something cheerful out of this petty squabbling and out of the larger economic landscape.

Yours faithfully,

John Sheil