This is the definition I am using:
a system, organization, or society in which people are chosen and moved into positions of success, power, and influence on the basis of their demonstrated abilities and merit.
Yes, but it doesn’t last for long. It just takes a few bad apples on top for the system to quickly go corrupt, which is why the powers on top need to constantly fear being changed by the people
What do you mean by doesn’t last long? Also if the society was a complete meritocracy what accountability would the people have?
Well, human judgement is not perfect, and eventually a snake would be able to climb the ranks and corrupt the whole system.
This is why democracy is the only system that can allow for “constant revolution” and if the current system is broken or corrupt, it’s the only way that allows for a consistent peaceful transfer of power. It is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but as Churchill once said “ Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…”
And for when the people in charge decide they’re not going to hand over their power despite being elected out, we have rules about it not being allowed to clear out people’s weapons.
Basically we do our best to ensure there are no circumstances where those in charge get to ignore those they’re ruling over. It’s a way of solving the agency problem given humans’ tendency to ignore the rules when they want to.
Another way to put it is that a politician might decide “oh this system of democracy isn’t going to keep me in power, so I’ll just step outside of it to the world of anything goes” and then an armed populace can say “nope, we’ve got moves there too, and they’re way worse for you than getting voted out”.
It makes the attractiveness of that step outside the system go way down.
“No! You can’t change me!”
“Yes we can”
::: changes him :::
“Well, I guess that does feel better”
“Told you”
Meritocracy just means you’re rewarded proportionally to your contribution. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re rewarded with authority over anyone.
Actually the “cracy” suffix does refer specifically to the distribution of authority. Democracy is a system in which people decide; not just one in which people do well. Aristocracy is where those people are the deciders, not just where they’re the most wealthy.
A fair point. I guess I’m used to it being used incorrectly then.
It’s a good idea in theory, but there’s a few problems:
- Wealth and power above a certain level tends to become generational no matter how meritorious the origin
- People who are less capable through disability, ilness, generational poverty or anything else not their fault would still be left behind
- A lot of jobs and other functions can benefit from several different skillsets, some of which aren’t mutually inclusive
- Who decides who’s best? Who decides who decides? Etc ad infinitum.
Regarding wealth, it doesn’t have to with a heavy enough estate tax, AKA anti-aristocracy tax.
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All of these arguments try to argue that implementing meritocracy perfectly is impossible.
But ask yourself, what is the alternative? A system in which the most capable person isn’t in charge? Should we go back to bloodlines, or popularity contests, or maybe use a lottery?
I agree it’s very difficult to determine merit, and even more difficult to stop power struggles from messing with the evaluation, or with the implementation. But I would still prefer a system that at least tries to be meritocratic and comes up short, to a system that has given up entirely on the concept.
I’ll try to answer some of your questions, as best as I understand it:
Who determines merit, ability, and position?
Ideally, a group of peers would vote for someone within the group, who is the most capable, with outside supervision to prevent abuses.
Popularity contests in determining merit
Popularity shouldn’t factor into it. Only ability. (and there’s no doubt Depp is the better actor :P )
Are Athletes or Artists more worthy
Each one is worthy within the scope of their domain of expertise, in which they have demonstrated merit.
Power corrupts
Always true in every system. That’s why we need checks and balances.
Save the entire planet, then start kicking cats. Still a hero?
If kicking cats is wrong, it should be against the law, and no one should be above the law. All other things being equal, whoever has the most capacity to save the planet should be the one to do it.
How long does a merit last?
For as long as you can demonstrate it. If someone better comes along, they should take your place.
Brilliant mathematicians get rewarded with what?
More mathematical problems. And ideally, also lots of money and babes.
At the end of the day, it’s a cultural problem. Meritocracy can only work if there’s a critical mass of people who believe in it, understand it, and enforce it socially. The same can be said of democracy, capitalism, and basically any other social order.
Brilliant mathematicians get rewarded with what?
More mathematical problems. And ideally, also lots of money and babes.
Bony fingers!
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Sorry for the delay, I don’t visit here very often. But thanks for engaging, and excuse my know-it-all tone.
I think there’s a basic misunderstanding regarding meritocracy. It is not something that only occurs in the top branches of the government. It’s something that should occur in every level of every organization, in every office and in every pay-grade. It’s not meant to solve the question of “who is the supreme leader”, because such a question is impossible. It’s meant to describe how should society function.
And which will continue until “most capable” is better defined
That is sophism imho. We don’t have to have the perfect definition, we just need to be closer to it than the alternatives.
The foundation of every democratic, republic, and individual choice based system today.
Popularity contests are a bad way of making choices, and it’s a big reason for why modern democracies have so many problems. Also, they are very often rigged, which is how you end up with “shit sandwich” situations (or Putin).
all people under any one governing system would never agree on what is virtuous, worthy, valuable, honorable, or respectable
There will never be a 100% agreement on what is true, or what is beautiful, or what is virtuous. But if we aim there, we can get closer than if we don’t.
How are resources distributed between groups?
Free market. Bid on problems. There are many possible algorithms. Right we do the worst option, in which the governing body distribute funds based on political power.
Or is this still an ownership system where you can hold on to any property indefinitely
I definitely believe in private property, if that’s what you’re asking. I think anyone who doesn’t is either dumb or delusional. Indefinitely is a bit much, but it should last long enough to be worth the effort.
A good workhorse is rewarded with more work. A never truer statement. Merit sounds exhausting today.
The idea is that you get enough rewards (money, social capital, etc.) that you will find the work worthwhile. Also, a lot of people enjoy doing things that they are good at. Either way, there is a point when you contributed enough that you can just peace out for the rest of your life, aka retirement. This is already semi-possible even in today’s broken system.
they just want the government to solve their problems or get out of their way
That’s a problem by itself. Governments are very bad at solving complex problems.
all seem to think voting for anyone other than rubbish R or rubbish D is throwing their vote away
That’s kind of true, because Americans refuse to implement a secondary choice. Just one little change would solve so much. (not that there aren’t 1000s of other problems).
If the meritocracy is not the law, who is the law?
I don’t really understand the question. The law is a bunch of rules, chosen by people in power. Ideally, those people would be competent, and create good laws. In my view, any system of law that doesn’t periodically remove or refactors outdated laws is incompetent. Yes, that’s basically everywhere.
You could try to enforce meritocracy in law. It would definitely help, but I don’t think it would be sufficient without cultural adoption.
It’s like you keep trying to find “who’s on top”, but in a perfect world no one is. Power should always be checked, and balanced. Monopolies should always be curtailed, both in the private and public sector. Meritocracy is just one algorithm out of many, like the free market, in order to have a better and more efficient society.
Hope that clears things up.
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That’s a very condescending comment. Maybe I came across as condescending too. Either way, if your criticism was supposed to be helpful, I’m sorry to say that it isn’t. You didn’t provide any evidence that I’m wrong. From my perspective, it sounds like you just don’t understand me, so you decided to give up.
Anyway, I’m not that enthusiastic about debating strangers over the internet, I only replied because you sounded curious. So I’m equally happy to bid you farewell.
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The core issue: Who determines merit, ability, and position? The people who write the rules are the actual government, and governments secure their own power.
You touched on a really important point here: when humans are judging skill, it’s subjective and not really meritocratic.
One of my favorite psychology professors says that people really like the idea of meritocracy, when it’s actually present. He gives the example of sports, and how people aren’t bitter about a particular team winning, or that there’s big inequality between the players, and that the reason people are okay with that inequality is the presence of the playing field and the high speed cameras and whatnot means meritocracy is the actual basis for reward, not personality politics.
In business, government, etc it’s all people judging other people, and on an individual basis. A group of people evaluating is better, like star ratings for an uber driver are probably more trustable than performance evaluations from someone’s boss. The latter can be so heavily distorted by that one person’s judgment.
The ideal is using measurable performance as the measure of “merit”. Like when people run a marathon. As long as the course is visible to confirm nobody’s cheating, that marathon time is yours in a way your degree or your job or your salary isn’t.
It’s also why people are so in favor of free markets deciding resource allocation rather than people: the free market is at least a large crowdsourced combination of everyone’s needs, instead of just some mental image of those needs in the mind of a few committee memebers.
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No.
Who gets to determine what counts as merit? If it’s the people with merit already, it’s trivial to corrupt such a system. Think billionares.
And then, is everyone even given the opportunity to display their merit and if they are, is their merit recognised? I’m concerned esp. about people perceived by society to have inherently less merit. Think disabled people, old people, young people, women, people of colour, queer folks, etc.
And then, how does the system ensure that merit wasn’t faked or even just exaggerated, how does it investigate and how does it respond? Does a sufficient amount of merit allow someone to cover up such things? If implemented, can and would this investigation power be used to punish people with low merit, those that are the most vulnereable?
And then, why do people that are not constantly being useful to the system deserve less and esp. if meritocracy is the only system in place, do some people not deserve to live at all? Here I’m talking about people that want to have a hobby or two or want to spend time with their friends and family, basically anything that doesn’t give merit. I’m also talking about people that can’t or don’t want to be useful to society.
Beyond all this, meritocracy aims to replace the people’s purpose in life with “being useful”. And that’s just a really miserable mindset to live with, where you feel guilt if you’re not being useful all the time, where you constantly have thoughts like “am I good enough” or “am I trying hard enough”.
I totally agree.
IMO the notion of merit is an illusion. It hides the assumption that people can be ranked and compared, but do we truly want to live in such a society?
Also, is that even feasible?
It’s impossible to objectively compare humans of similar “skill level”. For example, think of Plato and Aristotle, they have been dead for thousands of years and their work has been studied but millions of not billions of people, yet people still argue who was the best philosopher of the two. How can we have a meritocracy if we cannot evaluate merit? You may be able to distinguish experts from beginners for a certain skill, but, when considering roles of influence/power, there are multiple skills and attributes to be considered, and the same principle applies.
It’s easier to cheat a merit metric than to evaluate it. Any algorithm that makes a decision based on merit will need to either evaluate or compare it. Both are going to depend on the presence of absence of features that once known to a cheater they will be able to fake them. That makes evaluation and cheating a competing game, where the evaluator and the cheater contiously adapt to one another, with the cheater being much able to adapt much faster.
Any meritocracy will have to be open about it’s evaluation process. If it’s not participants with merit cannot know how to demonstrate it and the process is prune to corruption.
Personally, I believe making decisions based on trust is much better. It’s hard to build trust and it cannot be cheated. Of course, cheater may try to influence decision makers with bribes or blackmail. But, once this is found trust is destroyed and they get rejected.
It hides the assumption that people can be ranked and compared, but do we truly want to live in such a society?
I do. I just had a surgery and I’m very glad we have ranking and comparisons, and rejection of those who don’t rank and compare well, from the pool of available surgeons.
There would be no feeling of safety in that surgical theater, as I’m going under, if I thought that anyone was operating on the assumption that surgeons cannot be ranked in terms of merit. That would scare the shit out of me.
This is one of the reasons a free market is important. The collective feedback of a lot of customers is a better signal for real merit than a boss’s evaluation. A free market is a place where a person who fails to kiss enough ass to get good ratings from their boss can instead prove directly to those being served that they can help.
The “free market” conditions for this particular avenue of choice is a situation where an individual can go into business for themselves without too much artificial hassle. Like yes, maybe you’ll need a car for your own pizza delivery business, so there’s some startup cost, but at least you don’t need a special pizza delivery tag from the government, which can only be gained by … you guessed it … kissing more ass.
As an autistic, weird person who can get things done well but who always has personality conflicts with bosses, I feel safer in a place with something resembling the freedom to engage directly with customers, to be judged by the market instead of by a boss.
I often fail at jobs. But I often succeed when out on my own. Whenever someone proposes adding more permission slips to the process of starting a business, it makes me feel afraid, because being in business for myself is how I’ve survived.
I believe in the theory of a meritocracy, I even think it could work.
I don’t believe it exists anywhere in the world in practice where power and money are at play.
For anyone interested, Wikipedia provides some arguments against meritocracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_meritocracy
Meritocracy is argued to be a myth because, despite being promoted as an open and accessible method of achieving upward class mobility under neoliberal or free market capitalism, wealth disparity and limited class mobility remain widespread, regardless of individual work ethic.
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SO LONG AS IT IS ACTUAL MERITOCRACY,
and not just privilege’s gaslighting about it ( via making-certain that the poorest have inferior-nutrition, inferior-air-quality, worse-pollution, inferior-education, inferior-healthcare, etc ),
then yes, I hold it is The Proper Way.
However, it REQUIRES a truly-level playing-field, and not a 2-tiered “level” playing-field.
The Scandinavian system of ONLY public-schooling, so there is only 1 tier of education-quality, is a required component.
Student nutrition needs to be guaranteed.
Healthcare needs to work properly, for all.
Livingwage needs to be for all full-time work, and companies that try to hire only part-time for the real-work, have to have the profit-benefit of such hamstringing-of-many-lives cut from them all, permanently.
Fairness requries careful systematic, & openly-honest enforcement, because the DarkHexad: narcissism/machiavellianism/sociopathy-psychopathy/nihilism/sadism/systemic-dishonesty ALWAYS seeks to enforce abusive-exploitation, and it is underhandedly aggressive, and natural in our human nature.
Not mitigating it == accommodating it.
Salut, Namaste, & Kaizen, eh?
_ /\ _
But what is merit exactly? Who decides the criteria we use to measure it?
As a general rule, yes. People who are able to better perform a task should be preferentially allocated towards those tasks. That being said, I think this should be a guiding rule, not a law upon which a society is built.
For one, there should be some accounting for personal preference. No one should be forced to do something by society just because they’re adept at something. I think there is also space within the acceptable performance level of a society for initiatives to relax a meritocracy to some degree to help account for/make up for socioeconomic influences and historical/ongoing systemic discrimination. Meritocracy’s also have to make sure they avoid the application of standardized evaluations at a young age completely determining an individual’s future career prospects. Lastly, and I think this is one of common meritocracy retorhic’s biggest flaws, a person’s intrinsic value and overall value to society is not determined by their contributions to STEM fields and finance, which is where I think a lot of people who advocate for a more meritocracy-based society stand.
which is where I think a lot of people who advocate for a more meritocracy-based society stand.
Why do you think this is?
If I was guessing, in general, I think people who advocate for a pure meritocracy in the USA feel the world should be evaluated in more black and white, objective terms. The financial impact and analytic nature of STEM and finance make it much easier to stratify practitioners “objectively” in comparison to finding, for instance, the “best” photographer. I think there is also a subset of US culture that thinks that STEM is the only “real” academic group of fields worth pursuing, and knowledge in liberal arts is pointless -> not contributing to society -> not a meaningful part of the meritocracy. But I’m no expert.
I think there is also a subset of US culture that thinks that STEM is the only “real” academic group of fields worth pursuing, and knowledge in liberal arts is pointless -> not contributing to society -> not a meaningful part of the meritocracy.
Yeah I agree with this quite a bit.
I don’t think the idea of meritocracy only lives in the U.S.
I didn’t say it did, but I am a citizen of the USA and the vast majority of my cultural experience and knowledge, and therefore what I can intelligently comment on, are centered on the US.
That’s fair.
Just to make it clear the definition that I used does not talk about choosing people for tasks they are suited for, but rather putting them in positions of power, success, and influence.
Well you need to clarify further then. Are you saying we should make the best scientist the president, or the person with the most aptitude for politics and rule to be president? I don’t see how this is functionally different than what I said.
Well the way I interpret it is that people who demonstrate their ability are put into a position where they are rewarded more relative to their peers and/or have control over what their peers do.
So for example if I was a engineer and based on some metric was considered highly valuable then I would be paid more than other engineers and I would be put into a position where I can give other engineers directions on what needs to be done.
Then no, I don’t agree with this specific implementation of the system, at least the second half. I do think more productive/effective workers should be compensated more. But being a good engineer does not make you a good manager, and the issues associated with promoting an excelling worker into management (a job requiring a substantially different skill set) are so common there’s a name for their inevitable failure, The Peter Principle
a person’s intrinsic value and overall value to society is not determined by their contributions to STEM fields and finance
I don’t think anyone who views contributions in STEM fields as the most valuable to society has any respect for finance.
All of my encounters with individuals who feel liberal arts are useless and STEM is the way seem to, at their core, feel that way because of earning potential, and I’ve never heard one of them bash Econ/finance/investment as a career path. But 🤷♂️
All of my encounters with individuals who feel liberal arts are useless and STEM is the way seem to, at their core, feel that way because of earning potential
You were saying a group of people believe that value as a person is determined by their contributions to STEM fields and finance.
Now you’re saying that this group of people believe that value as a person is determined by earnings potential. Those are not the same things.
Like eugenics, it’s just another way for racists to push their racism under the guise of “science”. It’s not “corruptible”, it comes pre-corrupted.
Why would merit be a dog whistle for racism? Couldn’t the non-racists just be like “uh nope we’re considering merit here not race” when a racist tries to do that?
Every ‘ocracy’ is some kind of meritocracy. It’s just a matter of what the merit is and how it’s measured. They all suck because manipulators break them all.
Aristocracy says people who are in power are there because their fathers did too.
Which is the basis of their merit, in an aristocratic system.
Which they think is some kind of merit, and it’s not really too outlandish. There’s a pretty good chance that you’re awesome if your dad is awesome.
Institution by natural selection
Sounds right until you realize the system invalidates itself by making selection unnatural. 🤣
The word was coined as satire. Brain-dead
liberalscentrists took it seriously and, here we are.I have been sadly disappointed by my 1958 book, The Rise of the Meritocracy. I coined a word which has gone into general circulation, especially in the United States, and most recently found a prominent place in the speeches of Mr Blair.
The book was a satire meant to be a warning (which needless to say has not been heeded) against what might happen to Britain between 1958 and the imagined final revolt against the meritocracy in 2033.
Edited because too many people don’t know what liberal means.
DiCtIoNaRiEs aRe DeScRiPtiVe
A pure meritocracy is not possible with humans. Not everyone agrees on what “success” and “merit” look like. Whatever person or group of people doing the “choosing” will be corrupted, it’s just a question of how long it takes. And even before intentional abuse of their power, humans have their own biases that will prevent them from being perfect judges of merit and success.
And no, not a job for AI. Someone has to program the thing and teach it what “merit” and “success” mean, so same problem there.
No one single “-ocracy” applied exclusively can result in a well functioning society.
IMHO, you need bits from multiple different approaches blended together to get closer to a society that works well for the majority of people.
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That’s too vague a definition. Like, if person A is an accomplished athlete, the best basketball player ever, I do not think his position of power or success should be, say, president. I think this is actually a very dangerous mindset derived from the capitalistic notion that success determines your–I’ll call it value. If you’re successful, you must be smart; If you’re smart, you can be anything, even the president. Success is equal to wealth in these talking circles, and it sort of ends up as a backwards meritocracy. You gain merit measured by your success (wealth) instead of the other way around
But if you define it as a place in which positions of authority are given to people who have proven themselves knowledgeable and capable in the field in which the position of authority is being granted, I do believe in it in principle. I say that because principle and practice are rarely the same in politics and sociology. There are countless other factors that will impact your “success” that are not actually based on your expertise in the field. Better people have designed public transport, electric cars, social media, and spaceships than Elon Musk, yet the man sits in a position of tremendous influence. In a just meritocracy, we would never have heard his name
Which brings about the point that we have certain ideas as a culture (or maybe system) that awards some merits disproportionately more than others. Some will say his merit is in being a ruthless business man. He’s good at that, I guess, so he should be the leader of the company. His “merit” of being a bad human being is being disproportionately rewarded compared to the merit of the scientists that actually design his spaceships, and the engineers that make them work. Meritocracy only really works in a closed system. The most capable archaeologist will be the head of the expedition. If you let the ideas go beyond that, and start comparing apples to oranges, you start seeing instead a system’s idea of what’s important, and by extension that of the society built in that system
There’s a lot of good points here. I think even “better candidates” like a veterinarian or a variety of scientists may not even be a full “solution” to the systems issues due to people having the capability to still be bad despite being good at something. I mean just how many anti-vax scientists came out after 2020.
On the other hand, with stronger meritocracy maybe being genuinely incorrect would disqualify you and we wouldn’t be in a position where you can spew complete lies and still be seen as a worthwhile candidate. But that of course would mean that the meritocracy has positive values, which isn’t necessarily a guarantee because as you said, man that guy sure is good at being bad… Let’s elect him!
