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This is why meritocracy as it is now is flawed[0]. Smart people who work crazy hours, achieve a lot and obtain the appropriate status and wealth are also smart

This is why meritocracy as it is now is flawed[0]. Smart people who work crazy hours, achieve a lot and obtain the appropriate status and wealth are also smart enough to know to invest tons and tons of money into their kids’ education and incentivise them to work as hard. Eventually it approaches a “pyramid scheme” where again only rich can win and everyone is unhappy. [0] This is something Daniel Markovits talks about: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/meritocracys-miserable-winners/594760/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/meritoc...

ponker 6y ago
Except not only the rich can win. My longtime barber is a Vietnamese guy who speaks very broken English. When I go and get a haircut his son was often in the store studying. My barber would tell him a math problem, like 257 times 191 or whatever, then the kid would produce the answer, then my barber would interrupt my haircut to whip out a calculator and check. Kid got a full scholarship to Duke University. And I’ve seen this in other Asian immigrants as well, a cab driver in NYC whose daughter was at Cornell Medical School.
- krak12 6y ago
  So, entering a prestigious university is considered a success? It seems that the rich man has really won
- huffmsa 6y ago
  Barbering can be a surprising lucrative career. Especially men's barbering. Has a particularly high dollar/hour rate too. Tooling is $1k for clippers and scissors and razors. Not sure about chairs, but probably another $1k. Suppose you charge $20 a cut, typical cut takes ~15-20 minutes and you're open 360 days a year. 10 cuts/day => $72k/yr. 2-3 hours of work a day. 20 cuts/day => $144k/yr. 4-5 hours of work a day. Find reasonable rent and you're netting a pretty good profit. And yes it's an easy space to enter, but generally, once men find "their barber", they're locked in for pretty much the rest of their life and become a regular customer every 2-3 weeks.
  - tnli 6y ago
    Assuming you can keep your customer queue sufficient at all times, and that your clients can come when you are open. Most likely this means a location that already has a high throughput of potential customers and that also most likely means a place that has high rents. Sure, if you already have a place, like an extra room in your house, and you manage to establish yourself on the area. But even then you might find out that your first client wants to come in at 7 or 8 am, to get ready for whatever work thing they have that day, and the last client wants to come in at 8 pm, because they can’t earlier.
    - strogonoff 6y ago
      By the sound of it barbering resembles consulting a lot. Being in a lively area could help find some customers at first, but once you have established relationships with customers that value you specifically you can probably set up anywhere. (And if someone wants to come in at strange hours for important work appearances, I’m sure they won’t mind being charged double the price either!)
  - strogonoff 6y ago
    > once men find "their barber", they're locked in for pretty much the rest of their life and become a regular customer every 2-3 weeks. I’m curious whether it’s really specific to male population, and if so why… That aside, and I can’t believe that this is where the thread took us, I empathise so much with this. Even in countries where I can converse easily with anybody it’s a struggle for me to trust someone with my hair, despite me presumably not really caring about it. Now living in countries where I don’t speak local languages and locals predominantly don’t speak any of mine (or do so with much difficulty) I haven’t gone to a barber in years—I pretty much gave up and just live with terrible hair. I guess if I ever find “my barber” I may be willing to travel far to get my haircut.
  - ponker 6y ago
    LOL. 360 days a year tells me everything I need to know about your analysis.
andi999 6y ago
If you lool at it from a perspective of winning/loosing/fair/unfair you are probably right. If you look on the total effect of society then probably not. I mean to have competetive companies you need people who have worked(or played) their ass off and achieved skills and knowledge which only the mixture of privilege, work and skills can achieve. You actually want to give the smart kids extra tuition, because mostly these people will innovate later. (I dont mean to speak in absolutes here, but on average) Society is not only about distribution but to distribute something you have to create it first. So I would say, yes it is a flaw of meritocracy, but meritocracy is not flawed.
- strogonoff 6y ago
  That’s not what it’s about. In a meritocracy, a person should become powerful/rich according to their merit—education, skill, diligence, etc. However, what then happens is elites start religiously investing all they can (and they can invest a lot) into ensuring their own offspring has even more of that merit than others. As an exaggerated example, you can’t buy your kid a Pfeiffer turbopump to experiment with if you are choosing between bread and soap when you’re going to the store. What we get as a result is the same ever-growing gap between the already-rich and the rest. Meritocracy turns into plutocracy as merit becomes more or less a proxy for wealth. Breaking that trend would involve actions that go beyond meritocracy, and arguably are un-meritocratic: instead of just rewarding by merit, it’s about helping more people have that merit regardless of their or their parents’ wealth.
  - threatofrain 6y ago
    That’s not a confusion of merit and wealth. If I use wealth to teach you how to drive a truck or learn to program, that’s growing value inside a person. That person became stronger, and in the eyes of society, more meritorious for some tasks. Merit is due to many things, and mentorship, experimentation, and preparation are all parts of it. Medical training is also very expensive and part of medical merit, but also clearly entangled in discussions of money, opportunity, and growing inequity. If you have hidden biological talent but never trained as a doctor due to wealth, should we trust you now to perform medicine? Not before that expensive prep; it’s part of merit.
secondcoming 6y ago
'Smart people tend to make good parents. This is unfair' I'm not sure what actions you expect society to make to address this. Should smart people deliberately not be good parents so that social justice can prevail in a world full of not-so-smart people? Should not-so-smart people just not have children so society can be smarter as a whole?
- strogonoff 6y ago
  > Should smart people deliberately not be good parents so that social justice can prevail in a world full of not-so-smart people? > Should not-so-smart people just not have children so society can be smarter as a whole? Perhaps smart people could spend some of their hard-earned money and prestige to ensure the whole society, not just their offspring, has more opportunities and access to good education? However, as you can see, that does not align with meritocratic ideals as they are currently being applied.
fierarul 6y ago
Wow, that article: "meritocratic inequality". How would "meritocratic equality" look like!? Interesting how the rich were blamed for being fat cats and not are blamed for overworking so much they win the race. It seems some people are genuinely surprised there's more to money and status than just having the newest phone.
- strogonoff 6y ago
  > How would "meritocratic equality" look like!? I believe the article suggests things such as (but not only) changing education to be more accessible and inclusive, and making work done by employees without expensive education more valuable across industries. > are blamed for overworking so much they win the race. The point here is also that, while “winning the race” thanks to their hard work and abilities, under meritocracy as it is elites also produce more and more inequality in longer term, raising the bar and blocking middle and lower classes from opportunities. (I would tentatively posit that the existence of a race to be won is the problem here.)
  - fierarul 6y ago
    Honestly it would be nice to stop beating around the bush and declare your end goal: communism. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". "Meritocratic equality" is an oxymoron. You can only attain it if what you are measuring applies to everybody, like, say, having a pulse. The world is hyper-competitive. I don't believe the US will fare well with this excellent strategy.
    - strogonoff 6y ago
      > Honestly it would be nice to stop beating around the bush and declare your end goal: communism. First, let’s agree on whether we both believe the problem with meritocracy, as it works currently, is real. If you don’t believe so, then there’s no sense in continuing. Second, if the only solution you see is communism, don’t attribute the same outlook to me. As far as I’m aware, if communist regimes so far are any indication, communism could only make the situation worse with blatant nepotism if nothing else. What if, if a solution you can think of off the top of your head is horrible, all it means is that the problem is just not that easy to solve?

ponker 6y ago

Except not only the rich can win. My longtime barber is a Vietnamese guy who speaks very broken English. When I go and get a haircut his son was often in the store studying. My barber would tell him a math problem, like 257 times 191 or whatever, then the kid would produce the answer, then my barber would interrupt my haircut to whip out a calculator and check. Kid got a full scholarship to Duke University. And I’ve seen this in other Asian immigrants as well, a cab driver in NYC whose daughter was at Cornell Medical School.

krak12 6y ago
So, entering a prestigious university is considered a success? It seems that the rich man has really won
huffmsa 6y ago
Barbering can be a surprising lucrative career. Especially men's barbering. Has a particularly high dollar/hour rate too. Tooling is $1k for clippers and scissors and razors. Not sure about chairs, but probably another $1k. Suppose you charge $20 a cut, typical cut takes ~15-20 minutes and you're open 360 days a year. 10 cuts/day => $72k/yr. 2-3 hours of work a day. 20 cuts/day => $144k/yr. 4-5 hours of work a day. Find reasonable rent and you're netting a pretty good profit. And yes it's an easy space to enter, but generally, once men find "their barber", they're locked in for pretty much the rest of their life and become a regular customer every 2-3 weeks.
- tnli 6y ago
  Assuming you can keep your customer queue sufficient at all times, and that your clients can come when you are open. Most likely this means a location that already has a high throughput of potential customers and that also most likely means a place that has high rents. Sure, if you already have a place, like an extra room in your house, and you manage to establish yourself on the area. But even then you might find out that your first client wants to come in at 7 or 8 am, to get ready for whatever work thing they have that day, and the last client wants to come in at 8 pm, because they can’t earlier.
  - strogonoff 6y ago
    By the sound of it barbering resembles consulting a lot. Being in a lively area could help find some customers at first, but once you have established relationships with customers that value you specifically you can probably set up anywhere. (And if someone wants to come in at strange hours for important work appearances, I’m sure they won’t mind being charged double the price either!)
- strogonoff 6y ago
  > once men find "their barber", they're locked in for pretty much the rest of their life and become a regular customer every 2-3 weeks. I’m curious whether it’s really specific to male population, and if so why… That aside, and I can’t believe that this is where the thread took us, I empathise so much with this. Even in countries where I can converse easily with anybody it’s a struggle for me to trust someone with my hair, despite me presumably not really caring about it. Now living in countries where I don’t speak local languages and locals predominantly don’t speak any of mine (or do so with much difficulty) I haven’t gone to a barber in years—I pretty much gave up and just live with terrible hair. I guess if I ever find “my barber” I may be willing to travel far to get my haircut.
- ponker 6y ago
  LOL. 360 days a year tells me everything I need to know about your analysis.

andi999 6y ago

If you lool at it from a perspective of winning/loosing/fair/unfair you are probably right. If you look on the total effect of society then probably not. I mean to have competetive companies you need people who have worked(or played) their ass off and achieved skills and knowledge which only the mixture of privilege, work and skills can achieve. You actually want to give the smart kids extra tuition, because mostly these people will innovate later. (I dont mean to speak in absolutes here, but on average) Society is not only about distribution but to distribute something you have to create it first. So I would say, yes it is a flaw of meritocracy, but meritocracy is not flawed.

strogonoff 6y ago
That’s not what it’s about. In a meritocracy, a person should become powerful/rich according to their merit—education, skill, diligence, etc. However, what then happens is elites start religiously investing all they can (and they can invest a lot) into ensuring their own offspring has even more of that merit than others. As an exaggerated example, you can’t buy your kid a Pfeiffer turbopump to experiment with if you are choosing between bread and soap when you’re going to the store. What we get as a result is the same ever-growing gap between the already-rich and the rest. Meritocracy turns into plutocracy as merit becomes more or less a proxy for wealth. Breaking that trend would involve actions that go beyond meritocracy, and arguably are un-meritocratic: instead of just rewarding by merit, it’s about helping more people have that merit regardless of their or their parents’ wealth.
- threatofrain 6y ago
  That’s not a confusion of merit and wealth. If I use wealth to teach you how to drive a truck or learn to program, that’s growing value inside a person. That person became stronger, and in the eyes of society, more meritorious for some tasks. Merit is due to many things, and mentorship, experimentation, and preparation are all parts of it. Medical training is also very expensive and part of medical merit, but also clearly entangled in discussions of money, opportunity, and growing inequity. If you have hidden biological talent but never trained as a doctor due to wealth, should we trust you now to perform medicine? Not before that expensive prep; it’s part of merit.

secondcoming 6y ago

'Smart people tend to make good parents. This is unfair' I'm not sure what actions you expect society to make to address this. Should smart people deliberately not be good parents so that social justice can prevail in a world full of not-so-smart people? Should not-so-smart people just not have children so society can be smarter as a whole?

strogonoff 6y ago
> Should smart people deliberately not be good parents so that social justice can prevail in a world full of not-so-smart people? > Should not-so-smart people just not have children so society can be smarter as a whole? Perhaps smart people could spend some of their hard-earned money and prestige to ensure the whole society, not just their offspring, has more opportunities and access to good education? However, as you can see, that does not align with meritocratic ideals as they are currently being applied.

fierarul 6y ago

Wow, that article: "meritocratic inequality". How would "meritocratic equality" look like!? Interesting how the rich were blamed for being fat cats and not are blamed for overworking so much they win the race. It seems some people are genuinely surprised there's more to money and status than just having the newest phone.

strogonoff 6y ago
> How would "meritocratic equality" look like!? I believe the article suggests things such as (but not only) changing education to be more accessible and inclusive, and making work done by employees without expensive education more valuable across industries. > are blamed for overworking so much they win the race. The point here is also that, while “winning the race” thanks to their hard work and abilities, under meritocracy as it is elites also produce more and more inequality in longer term, raising the bar and blocking middle and lower classes from opportunities. (I would tentatively posit that the existence of a race to be won is the problem here.)
- fierarul 6y ago
  Honestly it would be nice to stop beating around the bush and declare your end goal: communism. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". "Meritocratic equality" is an oxymoron. You can only attain it if what you are measuring applies to everybody, like, say, having a pulse. The world is hyper-competitive. I don't believe the US will fare well with this excellent strategy.
  - strogonoff 6y ago
    > Honestly it would be nice to stop beating around the bush and declare your end goal: communism. First, let’s agree on whether we both believe the problem with meritocracy, as it works currently, is real. If you don’t believe so, then there’s no sense in continuing. Second, if the only solution you see is communism, don’t attribute the same outlook to me. As far as I’m aware, if communist regimes so far are any indication, communism could only make the situation worse with blatant nepotism if nothing else. What if, if a solution you can think of off the top of your head is horrible, all it means is that the problem is just not that easy to solve?