Latin America’s Persistent Disorder: Meritocracy Without Mobility

Latin America combines strong beliefs in meritocracy with high levels of inequality, crime, and informality. We argue that these problems mutually reinforce an unfair and inefficient social equilibrium, sustained by deep mistrust in public institutions, low interpersonal trust, and an untamed individualism that privileges private over collective solutions. These cultural and normative foundations weaken public good provision, normalize rule-breaking, and sustain widespread acceptance of meritocracy despite low social mobility. Meritocracy, largely imagined under such conditions, nonetheless fits this individualistic culture, legitimizes the status quo, and is perversely validated by limited mobility in the widely accepted informal, and at times illegal, economy. These dynamics help explain why reforms often fail to transform outcomes: they confront not only weak institutions, but also entrenched beliefs and practices. Understanding Latin America’s “meritocracy without mobility” therefore requires analyzing how institutions, culture, and social norms sustain inequality as a stable equilibrium.