Janteloven for Elitist Society

“Thou shalt not presume that thou art more than us,” says the Scandinavian author Axel Sandemose in Janteloven, a set of ten laws that rule the imaginary town of Jante. In Scandinavia, grading 10-year old children is the exception rather than the norm. The proposed reform to create star schools to accommodate the first thousand or so of sixth-graders in a national examination in Mauritius would be unimaginable there. Yet, by any standard, their achievements in terms of human capital, technological adoption and innovation, civic, political and social engagement far exceed those of elitist Mauritius. Why then, if we are so keen to nurture the highly-able, do we stop at high-school? Surely, the elite should also be nurtured to produce world-class research in our universities, world-class innovation in our enterprises. And if this is attainable without the early streaming of our children as seems to be the case there, then why not divert our limited resources and energy to this end instead?

In his essay, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (1962), Alexander Gerschenkron stresses the historical and political reasons why countries like Russia chose not to industrialise after the Industrial Revolution. The political elite viewed “railroads not as welcome carriers of goods and services, but as carriers of the dreaded revolution.” Formalised in 2002 by MIT economists, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, Gerschenkron’s ideas are now known as the political replacement effect that induces the political elite to block technological and institutional development so as to limit the risk of being replaced. Much of what is being said by the critics of the proposed educational reform in Mauritius can be cast within this framework. Their argument can be put as follows: there is a political elite, who views the current regionalisation of secondary education as a denial of their children’s right to attend the school of their choice. Indeed this makes sense for the elite whose children are more likely to succeed than the average child, possibly because they expend more effort and/or they benefit from stronger parental commitment and better primary schooling. If one buys this argument, it remains to be justified why the reform received the endorsement of the electorate. Myopia, lack of information? Or was the election won regardless?

In my opinion, there are two main arguments in favour of mass, egalitarian education until the age of maturity (say, 18). For the first, I would appeal to a growing body of research, which, for the sake of simplicity, I would call the Economics of Heterogeneity and Interaction. One of its torchbearers, Roland Bénabou opposes two educational structures: stratification (elitist) and integration (egalitarian). The superiority of each depends on its ability to process heterogeneity (in resources and talent) among individuals. A stratified regime maximises the potential of the talented, as it prevents the talented from being dragged down by the less talented. The integrated regime, on the other hand, performs better when there are positive spillovers that trickle down from the talented to the less talented (and vice-versa). These spillovers can take the form of peer-effects, role models, incentives to participate in the formal sectors of the economy, disincentives for fraudulent, criminal and other predatory behaviours, to name but a few. As much as an education system should avoid at all costs a ‘nivellement par le bas’, it should encourage the intellectual, cultural and social ‘brassage’ of its young minds, more so in a multicultural society.

The second argument is what I would call the diminished expectations of the mass. A few days ago, I had a conversation with a 17-year old who attends an average school. His morale was pretty low as he reckons that he has an impossible battle to fight for university given the intense competition that must rage in the star colleges. In any case, he added, it is well-known that examiners are more lenient towards students from these schools. How many of these unfounded beliefs are there to fuel the feeling of resentment of the mass towards the elite, of one community towards another?

There is no consensus around the Janteloven. In a speech in 2004, the Danish Prime Minister reminded the Danes that to remain competitive they “must become better at recognising, appreciating and rewarding those persons who dare, can and will. Success shall not breed envy, but recognition.” Indeed, lessons drawn from the Scandinavian economic successes, partly achieved with the help of substantial natural resources in a bygone, hyggelig era of trade protectionism, may be misleading in today’s world. Perhaps some dose of elitism is necessary. The crucial question is the stage of our life at which it most effective. Do we need competition at all ages or should we restrict it to higher education, as in France? How about competition in the workplace? For an economist obsessed with consistency, the Mauritian situation of intense competition in education together with the apparent lack of competition in the workplace, notably in the public sector, is a puzzle. For one who sees the glass half-full, this is justifiable because the outcome is more easily measurable (through grading) in schools than at work. Additionally, work does require more cooperation than school. For one who sees the glass half-empty, an elite that possesses the right attitude to education can easily foretell that elitism in education will benefit its offsprings, while competition in the workplace would open a kind of Pandora’s box.