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A lot of the comments here seem obsessively focused on Zach Dell. I can understand why, the author is (perhaps unfairly) hard on him. But the rest of the articl

• JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  There will always be a place for meritocracy because, at lower levels of the employment ladder, someone competent will need to get something done in order to operate a profitable company. You can't have straight incompetence from the C-suite down without eventually running a business into the ground. Although family money gives unfair advantages, you can make a nice life for yourself and earn above the median wage through acquiring in-demand skills through the meritocratic system. It isn't perfect, but it at least gives those who don't come from money --which is by and large, most people-- a chance at a decent life.
  • danharaj 7y ago
    Another way of seeing it is that we are all denied a decent life unless we are competent and sell our competent labor to uphold a system that keeps idiots at the top.
    • JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
      This supposes that all executive leadership is incompetent. That isn't the case. There are companies that, if you replaced the competent executives with idiots, the company would fall apart.
      • danharaj 7y ago
        #NotAllRulingClass
  • SolaceQuantum 7y ago
    "It isn't perfect, but it at least gives those who don't come from money --which is by and large, most people-- a chance at a decent life." What are the chances at a decent life anyways? Is the chance a good one? What is the worth of a meritocracy if you do all the right things and stull only get a probability of a right life?
  • jimbokun 7y ago
    Well, you can just use the Roman approach, and buy an educated slave.
• binarymax 7y ago
  This isn’t a recent trend that’s happening all of a sudden. History has shown time and again that bloodline and birth circumstances have been a dividing line between classes.
  • taigeair 7y ago
    I recall Genghis Khan's kids were pretty underwhelming too.
    • Apocryphon 7y ago
      Ogodei did a fine job, as did Chagatai. It's just Kublai and Batu, Genghis' grandsons, were more memorable.
• throwaway2048 7y ago
  The idea of things being a meritocracy has always been a lie, its just perhaps more obvious now than in the past. Tell me when exactly was this golden age of black people (for instance) in the USA not facing systematic discrimination, because I don't think that one ever arrived. Situations like that cant exist, and still have people claiming with a straight face that the system is a meritocracy.
  • tomp 7y ago
    I really hate this stupid argument. Meritocracy is like freedom and equality - it doesn't exist, and it's fundamentally unstable, so it will never exist, but it's a bright and fair ideal that's very worth striving for. Some people being disadvantaged (by birth, abuse, lack of education, ...) also doesn't retract the argument that meritocracy is useful (despite the whining of social justice warriors), at most it informs us that we should be looking for talent and potential in unexpected places (and nurturing it when we find it). The alternative is: "well there's this one girl that's a sex slave somewhere in the world... FREEDOM IS A FALSE IDEAL, EVERYBODY ABANDON SHIP!!!"
    • throwaway2048 7y ago
      Its a fine ideal, but plenty of people that massively benefit from the myth that it exists and is the primary way that people "get ahead" in the world, get very angry when you question that fact. Because its not, and the absurd shell games that get played to pretend it is are extremely harmful to society as a whole. You are making a straw man argument that I am "winging" that one person is disadvantaged, therefore the entire system is flawed. That is not the argument I am making. The argument I am making is in fact a majority of the population (Black, white, or otherwise) is greatly harmed by the myth that the American economic system greatly rewards "merit", how many poor white rural people become CEOs?
      • tomp 7y ago
        > myth that the American economic system greatly rewards "merit", how many poor white rural people become CEOs? Um... does anyone actually believe that “myth”? Last American election was a trust fund kid vs wife of former president... so anyone who still thinks it’s “all meritocracy 100% of the time” is beyond stupid. But that doesn’t make it a bad ideal. In fact, I’d say that, if anything, that would be an argument that we need more meritocracy (again, just like equality and freedom).
• Reedx 7y ago
  > we can work towards restoring social mobility and equality of opportunity for all. Restore to when? Where's the point in history where we had greater social mobility and equality of opportunity?
  • jonathankoren 7y ago
    The late 1940s and 1950s. This was due primarily due to a government program of giving people checks. I am of course, referring to the GI Bill. https://www.marketplace.org/2009/10/06/how-gi-bill-changed-economy/ https://www.marketplace.org/2009/10/06/how-gi-bill-changed-e...
    • xyzzyz 7y ago
      More people go to college now than during GI Bill era.
      • ivalm 7y ago
        College != upward mobility.
        • xyzzyz 7y ago
          I agree, and that's why I point that out: GI Bill is mostly a red herring here.
      • jonathankoren 7y ago
        Yes, that is also one of the legacies of the GI Bill. If you think you're being clever, you really need to read up on the legacy of the GI Bill. Perhaps, you could start by reading the article I linked to.
        • xyzzyz 7y ago
          Yes, that is also one of the legacies of the GI Bill. If it's going to college that fuels social mobility, then more people going to college today than in 1940s and 50s should mean more social mobility today. Since allegedly the opposite is true, there must have been something else different between 1940s and 50s and now, that has nothing to do with GI Bill funding more people going to college. If you think you're being clever There's no need for snark. you really need to read up on the legacy of the GI Bill. Perhaps, you could start by reading the article I linked to If you have a point, please make it explicitly, instead of having me guess it.
• dahart 7y ago
  > I missed the memo on when meritocracy became a bad word The New Yorker just had a very interesting article on the idea of Meritocracy and it covered some of the reasons why there's negativity associated with the idea. It was enlightening for me. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/30/is-meritocracy-making-everyone-miserable https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/30/is-meritocracy... The article is in part a review of the book "The Meritocracy Trap: How America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite" (Amazon link: https://tinyurl.com/y4qhruhc https://tinyurl.com/y4qhruhc) The basic argument is that "merit" is a word that pretends to be about innate ability and grit, where in reality it's a deep encoding of privilege. EDIT: OH and I forgot the most relevant tidbit... this article says that meritocracy was a bad word right from the start: "The term “meritocracy” was invented in the nineteen-fifties with a satirical intent that has now mostly been lost. “Merit” was originally defined as “I.Q. plus effort,” but it has evolved to stand for a somewhat ineffable combination of cognitive abilities, extracurricular talents, and socially valuable personal qualities, like leadership and civic-mindedness. Attributes extraneous to merit, such as gender, skin color, physical ableness, and family income, are not supposed to constrain the choice of educational pathways."
  • snagglegaggle 7y ago
    But if you throw out meritocracy because an advantageous position is partially inherited, what do you replace it with?
    • arcticbull 7y ago
      Well, an estate tax helps level the playing field over time. You earn money in your life, you get to spend it in your life. You die, and your children get some, but will have to earn a lavish lifestyle based on their merits. Exponential decay of wealth from generation to generation will resolve the advantaged starting position in time, and the proceeds obtained can be used to raise the remaining folks up to a level of relative competitiveness. This satisfies the idea that outsized reward should be available to those who create outsize value, but also ensures that this doesn't pass on to the idiot children.
• iamasoftwaredev 7y ago
  > I missed the memo on when meritocracy became a bad word When people realized that the guy who starts with a billion dollar dad and a buy in to harvard is being graded on the same scale as the guy who started in a trailer park with a single mom and community college. You can't have a meritocracy without the same starting point, and you can't have that in real life.
  • leetcrew 7y ago
    computers don't care whether you grew up in a trailer. the concept of meritocracy doesn't require that everyone has an even start (whatever that looks like). it just requires that people are selected for positions based on who is most likely to do a good job. it's unfair, but the silver spoon kid who graduated from Harvard with a 4.0 is usually a better bet than the kid who dropped out after the eighth grade. edit: I actually doubt the son of the billionaire gets graded on the same scale as the trailer park kid. my guess is it's pretty hard to fail a course taught in a building named after your dad, but maybe that's overly conspiratorial.
• FussyZeus 7y ago
  Meritocracy in principle is a solid idea, but in practice, it simply has never existed. Even in what most would define as meritocracy's golden age, the "merit" of a person still depended massively on their upbringing; even the neighborhood a child grows up in (or the quantity of neighborhoods) can tell you a lot about what someone will be able to achieve in life. The rich hate this, and have clung to meritocracy to excuse the fact that their children, brought up with staff to see to their needs, with education to explore every curiosity, with hobbies to learn what they like, and with resources to attend college virtually without cost, are somehow not advantaged over a child who's mother has to work two jobs to scrape out a meager living, and sees said child maybe 3 hours a day, to send them to a public school or daycare where they are treated like cattle, until they can sign up for enough debt when they barely understand finance at all, to assure they won't be able to buy a home until their thirties, at best. It's ridiculous. The core tenet of meritocracy is a level playing field and the rich and poor have never had one, ever, at any point, and arguably could not as long as markets exist. It's just not possible. As long as there are financial barriers to child care, to housing, to education, you cannot claim we have meritocracy. Simple as.
  • viklove 7y ago
    Meritocracy implies nothing about fairness or a level playing field. Meritocracy implies the person with the best skills gets the job. If someone with worse skills gets the job because they're the bosses son, or even just because of their gender/race, it can no longer be considered a meritocracy. The only way to fix what you've brought up is to have all children be taken from their parents at birth and raised in an equal opportunity community akin to The Giver. Is that what you want?
    • FussyZeus 7y ago
      > Meritocracy implies nothing about fairness or a level playing field. Meritocracy implies the person with the best skills gets the job. This only works if you completely disregard the entire process through which someone attains skills. If this is indeed what Meritocracy is then it's even less adequate as a system than I previously believed. > The only way to fix what you've brought up is to have all children be taken from their parents at birth and raised in an equal opportunity community akin to The Giver. Is that what you want? False dichotomy. There is no possibility of a system between totalitarian child rearing by the state and a system rigged entirely and completely for the wealthy? Spare me.
• NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Meritocracy was always supposed to be a bad word. Michael Young put out "The Rise of the Meritocracy", and thereby coined the word, in 1958 to present it as a dystopia. He satirised the then current tiered and selective UK education system, to show it as an alternative class system, just as problematic, just as corrupt. Just as likely to produce an unfit ruling class, and to create a lower or under class. Edit: I should add that it wasn't arguing against merit per se. In modern context, the evolution of selecting by skill into all the baggage we now have around it, like soft skills and the chasing and gaming of particular measures, or hiring by whiteboard algorithm recollection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy
• corodra 7y ago
  There was a time where the wealthy and well connected didn't have a stranglehold on society? All of human civilized history has been about nobility, religion, politics and individual wealth workings on the structure of society. I dont understand the surprise these days that the exact same thing is happening. Nothing is different. I'm not defending the system. But pretending like it's a new thing will get you nowhere but a new flavor of the same shitty system because you dont understand the underlying functions or causes to the system. The Russians didn't like the tsar and his over reaching police state. They revolted and created a police state that made the tsar's antics look like a deep tissue massage in comparison.
• licebmi__at__ 7y ago
  >I missed the memo on when meritocracy became a bad word, but the children of the wealthy and privileged are taking full advantage of meritocracy's retreat. I'm pretty surprised how people fail to notice the similarities between meritocracy and aristocracy. I don't think it's an obscure fact that aristocracy is meant to be "the rule of the best or the fittest"; and it's so obvious that it failed and degenerated to a hereditary mess that we invented a different word to express the same idea. Hey, maybe this time will be different and we will get it right, but I don't think mocking those who are skeptics of the term and try to draw attention to the ideological usage will help us.