Frances Gottfried offers a thorough-going critique of municipal civil service systems and the principles of meritocracy that underlie them, focusing especially on the social inequities and entrenchment of power that continue to bedevil the public sector. Beginning with an examination of the principles and history of the merit system, the author challenges the assumption that a real meritocracy does in fact exist. She looks at current practices and procedures in civil service, with particular attention to the decision-making process. She explores the role of the rigid credentialling system in maintaining a powerful elite within civil service and in creating barriers to career opportunities for minorities and women. In the next three chapters, Gottfried considers attempts that have been made to reform the merit system through affirmative action, litigation aimed at eliminating inequities, and public employment programs from the New Deal years through the early 1970s. Concluding that the rigidly structured municipal civil service system is neither efficient nor equitable, she contends that it effectively widens the gulf between municipal employees and the communities it is their responsibility to serve.
