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Meritocracy is a form of propaganda to keep a compliant populace in general and workforce in particular. It is the idea that if you work really hard you will b

by jmyeet 4y ago

Meritocracy is a form of propaganda to keep a compliant populace in general and workforce in particular. It is the idea that if you work really hard you will be rewarded. It is the basis for most people thinking they're above average. It is why so many people believe they'll be Elon Musk one day so they die on the hill opposing any effort to tax the 10 richest people in America slightly ore because, hey, that will be them some day. But what this really does is just allows someone to be exploited. This permeated every aspect of life and starts from a very young age. It's going to better schools (even from a pre-K level), having access to tutors to better your results on standardized testing, getting access to lucrative internships and jobs (eg nepo babies), having social connections, getting into good colleges and so on. And it compounds. Many fields require you to take jobs that pay nothing or minimum wage (eg a production assistant on a movie set). Having the means to do this gives you an enormous advantage for someone for whom this simply isn't an option. For example, there's a lot of disagreement about affirmative action in college admissions. This is really the wrong conversation to be having. The right one is about how ~36% of each new undergraduate class at Harvard are legacy admissions and the legacy admission rate is 20% or higher. It goes beyond wealth and privilege however. So much of the working world isn't about doing the best work or working the hardest. Instead much of it comes down to being liked and that encompasses a lot of things, not the least of which is coming from a similar background.

janalsncm 4y ago
It was kind of remarkable, I disagreed with your initial statement that meritocracy is “propaganda” but almost everything that followed was something that I could’ve wrote. It seems to me that de facto meritocracy largely does not exist because it can be gamed. This leads to insulting post-hoc justifications for hoarding wealth despite the fact that merit often has nothing to do with it. That ethos is absolutely propaganda. Harvard would be more honest if they just auctioned seats to the highest bidder. At least that would have transparency and efficiency that their current process lacks. I haven’t given up on the idea of meritocracy though. It’s certainly better than hereditary rule. The only solution I can see is to fix the measures of merit so that they’re harder to game.

by jmyeet 4y ago

janalsncm 4y ago

It was kind of remarkable, I disagreed with your initial statement that meritocracy is “propaganda” but almost everything that followed was something that I could’ve wrote. It seems to me that de facto meritocracy largely does not exist because it can be gamed. This leads to insulting post-hoc justifications for hoarding wealth despite the fact that merit often has nothing to do with it. That ethos is absolutely propaganda. Harvard would be more honest if they just auctioned seats to the highest bidder. At least that would have transparency and efficiency that their current process lacks. I haven’t given up on the idea of meritocracy though. It’s certainly better than hereditary rule. The only solution I can see is to fix the measures of merit so that they’re harder to game.