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What's merit? Who defines, what the merit is? The majority definitely couldn't judge merits, since avg Joe knows nothing about surgery or economics. The insti

What's merit? Who defines, what the merit is? The majority definitely couldn't judge merits, since avg Joe knows nothing about surgery or economics. The institutions couldn't regulate themselves as well, since this leads to corruption, where the most politically active are getting to the top and starting to regulate on the loyalty basis. We need external checks and balances for institutions as well. We can't have a meritocracy without an external authoritative voice judging, what's the merit. Hence any meritocracy or even technocracy applied is ended up being a authoritarian, ineffective corrupted mess. We had this in soviet union, we had this in china. The idea that people should be judged by merits and the best scientists, academics, writers should be at the top ended in soviet union with the distortion of the very notion of merits and values: careerists got to the top and ruled out actual smart people, turning institutions into corrupted mess.

tomp 7y ago
This is a giant strawman. In market economy, merit is judged by the people, according to whatever dimensions they value / care about (could be different for different people). The whole point is just that the barriers to entry are (relatively) low and people are (relatively) free to prove themselves. See a shitty sword and think you can do better? Pick a hammer and make a better sword. No requirement for you to inherit membership of the swordmaking guild. Of course there are still barriers, but they're lower than in non-merit-based systems, and serve (ostensibly) different purposes (e.g. protecting consumers, not protecting the elites).
- analognoise 7y ago
  Absolutely a lie, because it's predicated on the false belief that we all start from the same point. Most of the accrual of wealth in the 'meritocratic' system also goes to the inheritance class - in your example, see a shitty sword and think you can do better? Get a world-renowned swordsmithing coach, have the finances to work at it all day for however long it takes, import the best materials, buy the best workshop, then reap the rewards - all while talking about "your hard work and dedication" and claim everyone else could do it too. It's total, and utter, bullshit.
  - tomp 7y ago
    I think you're conflating a few things. All meritocracy is, is saying "he gets the job because he's the best" as opposed to "he gets the job because he's my/the king's son". Why someone is the best, is a completely different question. Talent, effort, genetics & IQ, education, nutrition (possibly one of the biggest contributors to the rise of IQ in the 20th century), ... Now, I think it's prudent, from the perspective of society and/or individual companies, to not just consider who is the best right now but also who has the most potential (to be the best in the future), because extreme innate talent seems to be widely distributed and found in unexpected places (e.g. Ramanujan), so societies that fail to identify and develop that talent are losing out... But then, this idea is orthogonal to meritocracy (e.g. already the Habsburg empire recognized the value of public schooling and literacy of the general population).

tomp 7y ago

This is a giant strawman. In market economy, merit is judged by the people, according to whatever dimensions they value / care about (could be different for different people). The whole point is just that the barriers to entry are (relatively) low and people are (relatively) free to prove themselves. See a shitty sword and think you can do better? Pick a hammer and make a better sword. No requirement for you to inherit membership of the swordmaking guild. Of course there are still barriers, but they're lower than in non-merit-based systems, and serve (ostensibly) different purposes (e.g. protecting consumers, not protecting the elites).

analognoise 7y ago
Absolutely a lie, because it's predicated on the false belief that we all start from the same point. Most of the accrual of wealth in the 'meritocratic' system also goes to the inheritance class - in your example, see a shitty sword and think you can do better? Get a world-renowned swordsmithing coach, have the finances to work at it all day for however long it takes, import the best materials, buy the best workshop, then reap the rewards - all while talking about "your hard work and dedication" and claim everyone else could do it too. It's total, and utter, bullshit.
- tomp 7y ago
  I think you're conflating a few things. All meritocracy is, is saying "he gets the job because he's the best" as opposed to "he gets the job because he's my/the king's son". Why someone is the best, is a completely different question. Talent, effort, genetics & IQ, education, nutrition (possibly one of the biggest contributors to the rise of IQ in the 20th century), ... Now, I think it's prudent, from the perspective of society and/or individual companies, to not just consider who is the best right now but also who has the most potential (to be the best in the future), because extreme innate talent seems to be widely distributed and found in unexpected places (e.g. Ramanujan), so societies that fail to identify and develop that talent are losing out... But then, this idea is orthogonal to meritocracy (e.g. already the Habsburg empire recognized the value of public schooling and literacy of the general population).