> Central to that cultural history has also been the notion of meritocracy, going back to the Mandarin bureaucrat-scholars who obtained their positions through

> Central to that cultural history has also been the notion of meritocracy, going back to the Mandarin bureaucrat-scholars who obtained their positions through the imperial examination system. More recently, China’s communists have attempted to run a more vibrant economy by reintroducing meritocracy — and not just in government. I want to point out that the "notion of meritocracy" in the Chinese imperial examination system was a myth. The amount of time and energy required to study for these examinations, the resources required to acquire the knowledge necessary to pass them, and the myriad ways that connections could help one bypass various steps of the process all added up to a system which heavily favored the elite while nominally remaining open to all. Needless to say there are some strong parallels to the state of education in the United States in the 21st century...