4 ms·
> What is merit? Is it merit if, because someone is of faith, they donate food to those without? That person who is receiving the food has more than they did pr
by darawk 8y ago
> What is merit? Is it merit if, because someone is of faith, they donate food to those without? That person who is receiving the food has more than they did prior, the person who had the food has less.
Merit is extremely easy to define. Merit is providing economic value to society. We have an imperfect, but quite impressive system for measuring this, called pricing. If I can create something you want, you pay me for it. I capture part of the excess value of that transaction, commensurate with the uniqueness of what I created.
- ivalm 8y agoSo accidentally finding a gold nugget on your family farm is merit?
- darawk 8y agoI didn't say luck didn't exist, or wasn't involved. But absent the incentive to capture some of the value of that gold, the person who finds it would simply leave it there on their farm, despite the fact that other people in the world want it.
- ivalm 8y agoSure, it is just not merit. People are incentivized and are rewarded for a variety of reasons -- some merit-based and many non-merit-based. I am not arguing against capitalism.