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We really need to interrogate the concept of meritocracy a lot more: "Many deride our meritocracy for not really working for the poor, for people of colour, fo

We really need to interrogate the concept of meritocracy a lot more: "Many deride our meritocracy for not really working for the poor, for people of colour, for women; they see structural impediments to these groups as preventing a real meritocracy from flourishing. But I would put it to you a different way: What could be crueler than an actual meritocracy, a meritocracy fulfilled?" Because once we acknowledge that natural talent exists at all, even if it were a minor factor, the whole moral justification for the edifice of meritocracy falls away. No one chooses who their parents are, no one can determine their own natural academic abilities, and a system that doles out wealth and hardship based on academic ability is inherently and forever a rigged game." -- Freddie de Boer (from The Cult of Smart, an incredible book btw)

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> once we acknowledge that natural talent exists at all, even if it were a minor factor, the whole moral justification for the edifice of meritocracy falls away Not from a society-level utilitarian perspective. Meritocracy aims to elevate the most competent people to the elite ranks while working to remove incompetent elites from power. (Given power is a zero-sum game, we have no short-term solution to the existence of elites.) A properly-tuned meritocratic measure thus looks for what a society needs in its elites to survive and thrive. (We don’t have such a function.) It may not be fair, individually. But it will he efficient, socially. Paradoxically, those elites must then recognise that their position is largely a result of luck, and thus not an opportunity to become extractive towards the rest of the populace. That latter component means not every selection mechanism should to be meritocratic. This is one philosophical basis for balancing a meritocratic private sector and public service with elected elites, whose selection is decidedly not meritocratic.
- djrobstep 6y ago
  Using merit as a proxy for competence is where a lot of the trouble starts. They are very different. Merit really means ladder-climbing - plenty of incompetent and amoral people are are good at climbing the ladder. It is the ladder itself that is the core of the problem.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > Using merit as a proxy for competence is where a lot of the trouble starts These debates tend to get diluted absent a specific meritocratic measure. With respect to college, I think the sole question to be answered by such a measure is probability of the admitee graduating. We are able, to some degree, to predict this. Given such a measure, it doesn’t make sense to give a seat to someone who has a 5% chance of graduating over someone with a 90% chance.
    - tchaffee 6y ago
      > I think the sole question to be answered by such a measure is probability of the admitee graduating. A society where the only criteria for access to higher education is that one graduates - and then perhaps goes on to do nothing with their education, or even just maintains the status quo - is a failure in my book. If we wanted to look at their contributions to capitalism using a market measure (I'm not claiming this is even a good measure) then university dropouts like Bill Gates and Zuck are already examples of how your measure fails. (Although Gates did eventually graduate 34 years after starting, hopefully the point is clear and we don't need to get pedantic about a simple example).
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - Rury 6y ago
        >> I think the sole question to be answered by such a measure is probability of the admitee graduating. >A society where the only criteria for access to higher education is that one graduates - and then perhaps goes on to do nothing with their education, or even just maintains the status quo - is a failure in my book. These two differing opinions showcase the problem with any meritocracy. That being - merit is ultimately subject to an opinion. This is not to say that a metric can be objectively used to determine merit (it can), it's that who's ultimately 'merrited' to determine what merits X?
    - pessimizer 6y ago
      Are you the one who came up with the plan for the UKs GCSE and A-level results this year?
pasabagi 6y ago
I think wealth is essentially a means of distributing, directing and exchanging social power. So wealth and scarcity are not necessarily cruel, unless you feel like cruel deprivation is necessary to maintain social power. Then the question is not how do you distribute cruelty and wealth, but rather, how do you direct society in order to minimize cruelty? I think meritocracy would be a really bad way to go about this, because rooting power in 'merit' would very quickly lead to merit being defined as whatever maintains incumbent power. So you'd end up with not only something that isn't meritocratic in any reasonable sense, but also corrupts the idea of merit. And since that's often knowledge-based merit, you'd end up with a situation where whatever 'knowledge' incumbents had proved proficiency in would become something they would protect against all challengers. Intellectual stagnation and extreme discouragment of creativity would be the norm.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  Goldstein says the Inner Party of Oceania is a meritocracy: > "The child of Inner Party parents is in theory not born into the Inner Party. Admission to either branch of the Party is by examination, taken at the age of sixteen. Nor is there any racial discrimination, or any marked domination of one province by another. Jews, Negroes, South Americans of pure Indian blood are to be found in the highest ranks of the Party, and the administrators of any area are always drawn from the inhabitants of that area." > "The Party is not a class in the old sense of the word. It does not aim at transmitting power to its own children, as such; and if there were no other way of keeping the ablest people at the top, it would be perfectly prepared to recruit an entire new generation from the ranks of the proletariat." I don't know how reliable a narrator Smith may be, because as an Outer Party member he's obviously an auxiliary who failed his quals... Also, we mustn't forget that reasonable incumbents won't protect against all challengers, merely most. The cream of society must consist not solely of the rich and the thick, but also a few nouveau aristos, if it wishes to be stable. I capture the rising elite You utilise potential leadership cadres from historically superseded classes They cut in the smart boys from the opposition, so that they can't set up a racket of their own https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24070333 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24070333
barry-cotter 6y ago
“ A well-written, highly intelligent book, inveighing against various aspects of the current meritocracy, and how they contribute to what the author calls “social injustice.” People who do educational policy, or who think about inequality should read this book. But ultimately what is his remedy? I would sooner attack homework, credentialism, and bureaucratization than testing. And yes, IQ is overrated, but the correct alternative view emphasizes stamina and relentlessness in a manner that I don’t think will make deBoer any happier. To lower the status of smarts, in the meantime, I fear is not going to do us any good.” https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/08/what-ive-been-reading-172.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/08/wh...
perl4ever 6y ago
This is obviously true. Nobody deserves to take pride in anything, whatever you consider "merit"; Mark Twain wrote an essay called "What is Man" arguing this. Everybody is a product of their environment. On the other hand, remember what Roman Hruska said about needing some representation of mediocre people on the Supreme Court? "We can’t have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos." ...and people still make fun of it.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago

> once we acknowledge that natural talent exists at all, even if it were a minor factor, the whole moral justification for the edifice of meritocracy falls away Not from a society-level utilitarian perspective. Meritocracy aims to elevate the most competent people to the elite ranks while working to remove incompetent elites from power. (Given power is a zero-sum game, we have no short-term solution to the existence of elites.) A properly-tuned meritocratic measure thus looks for what a society needs in its elites to survive and thrive. (We don’t have such a function.) It may not be fair, individually. But it will he efficient, socially. Paradoxically, those elites must then recognise that their position is largely a result of luck, and thus not an opportunity to become extractive towards the rest of the populace. That latter component means not every selection mechanism should to be meritocratic. This is one philosophical basis for balancing a meritocratic private sector and public service with elected elites, whose selection is decidedly not meritocratic.

djrobstep 6y ago
Using merit as a proxy for competence is where a lot of the trouble starts. They are very different. Merit really means ladder-climbing - plenty of incompetent and amoral people are are good at climbing the ladder. It is the ladder itself that is the core of the problem.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > Using merit as a proxy for competence is where a lot of the trouble starts These debates tend to get diluted absent a specific meritocratic measure. With respect to college, I think the sole question to be answered by such a measure is probability of the admitee graduating. We are able, to some degree, to predict this. Given such a measure, it doesn’t make sense to give a seat to someone who has a 5% chance of graduating over someone with a 90% chance.
  - tchaffee 6y ago
    > I think the sole question to be answered by such a measure is probability of the admitee graduating. A society where the only criteria for access to higher education is that one graduates - and then perhaps goes on to do nothing with their education, or even just maintains the status quo - is a failure in my book. If we wanted to look at their contributions to capitalism using a market measure (I'm not claiming this is even a good measure) then university dropouts like Bill Gates and Zuck are already examples of how your measure fails. (Although Gates did eventually graduate 34 years after starting, hopefully the point is clear and we don't need to get pedantic about a simple example).
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - Rury 6y ago
      >> I think the sole question to be answered by such a measure is probability of the admitee graduating. >A society where the only criteria for access to higher education is that one graduates - and then perhaps goes on to do nothing with their education, or even just maintains the status quo - is a failure in my book. These two differing opinions showcase the problem with any meritocracy. That being - merit is ultimately subject to an opinion. This is not to say that a metric can be objectively used to determine merit (it can), it's that who's ultimately 'merrited' to determine what merits X?
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    Are you the one who came up with the plan for the UKs GCSE and A-level results this year?

pasabagi 6y ago

I think wealth is essentially a means of distributing, directing and exchanging social power. So wealth and scarcity are not necessarily cruel, unless you feel like cruel deprivation is necessary to maintain social power. Then the question is not how do you distribute cruelty and wealth, but rather, how do you direct society in order to minimize cruelty? I think meritocracy would be a really bad way to go about this, because rooting power in 'merit' would very quickly lead to merit being defined as whatever maintains incumbent power. So you'd end up with not only something that isn't meritocratic in any reasonable sense, but also corrupts the idea of merit. And since that's often knowledge-based merit, you'd end up with a situation where whatever 'knowledge' incumbents had proved proficiency in would become something they would protect against all challengers. Intellectual stagnation and extreme discouragment of creativity would be the norm.

082349872349872 6y ago
Goldstein says the Inner Party of Oceania is a meritocracy: > "The child of Inner Party parents is in theory not born into the Inner Party. Admission to either branch of the Party is by examination, taken at the age of sixteen. Nor is there any racial discrimination, or any marked domination of one province by another. Jews, Negroes, South Americans of pure Indian blood are to be found in the highest ranks of the Party, and the administrators of any area are always drawn from the inhabitants of that area." > "The Party is not a class in the old sense of the word. It does not aim at transmitting power to its own children, as such; and if there were no other way of keeping the ablest people at the top, it would be perfectly prepared to recruit an entire new generation from the ranks of the proletariat." I don't know how reliable a narrator Smith may be, because as an Outer Party member he's obviously an auxiliary who failed his quals... Also, we mustn't forget that reasonable incumbents won't protect against all challengers, merely most. The cream of society must consist not solely of the rich and the thick, but also a few nouveau aristos, if it wishes to be stable. I capture the rising elite You utilise potential leadership cadres from historically superseded classes They cut in the smart boys from the opposition, so that they can't set up a racket of their own https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24070333 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24070333

barry-cotter 6y ago

“ A well-written, highly intelligent book, inveighing against various aspects of the current meritocracy, and how they contribute to what the author calls “social injustice.” People who do educational policy, or who think about inequality should read this book. But ultimately what is his remedy? I would sooner attack homework, credentialism, and bureaucratization than testing. And yes, IQ is overrated, but the correct alternative view emphasizes stamina and relentlessness in a manner that I don’t think will make deBoer any happier. To lower the status of smarts, in the meantime, I fear is not going to do us any good.” https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/08/what-ive-been-reading-172.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/08/wh...

perl4ever 6y ago

This is obviously true. Nobody deserves to take pride in anything, whatever you consider "merit"; Mark Twain wrote an essay called "What is Man" arguing this. Everybody is a product of their environment. On the other hand, remember what Roman Hruska said about needing some representation of mediocre people on the Supreme Court? "We can’t have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos." ...and people still make fun of it.