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We currently live in a society that valorizes meritocracy and equal opportunity and also providing for one's descendants. It supposes that you're you should hav

We currently live in a society that valorizes meritocracy and equal opportunity and also providing for one's descendants. It supposes that you're you should have equal opportunity to enjoy a middle class or greater lifestyle if you're not a total mess, and that your success is something you can provide to your children as a leg up. Not every society struggles/struggled so poignantly with the contradiction between those things as we now do, but we do, and that's where the modern criticism of nepotism originates. Teaching your children your trade by inviting them into your workshop or boardroom is sensible, but it inevitably means that there's less room in that workshop or boardroom for the scrappy, bright outsider whose supposed to have a fair chance. There's not really one right answer under that kind of tension, so there's no surprise when criticism is levied in either direction.

adamc 2y ago
Well... the "right answer" is going to be subjective. But I think parents providing for their children is going to win out 1000 times out of 1000. It's got human psychology and biology behind it. If doing what is "right" means I have to hamstring my kid's chances, then I'm going to pass on "right" (or, more likely, re-orient my thinking to make it not "right") and help my kid.
- staunton 2y ago
  You seem to be claiming that nepotism is good and that it is prevalent in all societies. Surely I misunderstood? Most societies do demand that workers for important roles be selected on merit or based on other criteria known to all participants, and not based on some individual's wish to care for their family or friends. This is without anyone thinking of such a wish as illegitimate. However , acting on it is still nepotism and societies impose this prohibition on its members because it benefits all. In this sense, "parents providing for their children" is "losing out" in certain important domains all around the world.
  - swatcoder 2y ago
    > Most societies do demand that workers for important roles be selected on merit or based on other criteria known to all participants Most societies become pretty practical after a while, and strive for people to be reliable and adequate for the roles they're appointed to play and celebrate the occasional master of some craft or pursuit. Being groomed for an opportunity from childhood, under the attention of one's family, often delivers on those and so a lot of societies don't worry about it except when it's obvious that somebody completely incompetent has ended up responsible for some influential or essential role. It's actually a very peculiar modern experiment to expect every role to somehow be filled by the most capable person and for every person to be appointed a role that they're personally passionate about. Maybe it'll give us some amazing Star Trek utopia someday, but you don't see that idea expressed very much in history and so we don't really have reason to know what will happen if we try to make it so.
    - staunton 2y ago
      There's a very long history of trying to establish merit-based selection of government officials in, e.g., china. That's not to say there wasn't a lot of nepotism anyway, but I think it's also undeniable that the state was trying to reduce it, rather than just accepting it as normal and unavoidable. Nowadays I would also guess that the majority of people across the globe live in societies where nepotism is conceived of as bad. There might still be various amounts of it but people generally tend to discourage or punish nepotism when they can.
    - jltsiren 2y ago
      It's not enough to strive for people to be reliable and adequate. You need a system that selects reliably for such people. Being groomed for a job from childhood is not reliable enough. Many people will be good enough for the job, but many will not. The problem becomes bigger the higher up you go in the society. Meritocracy won, both in economy and in war, because the people in charge in non-meritocratic societies are too often grossly incompetent.
    - adamc 2y ago
      Yeah, this. Also, in most advanced societies, it isn't particularly likely that your kid wants to work at whatever you were doing. But there are a bunch of services helping "teach the test" for kids going to college/grad school, and in very, very many ways, middle class (or better off) parents do strive to give their kids tons of advantages that other kids do not have. Is it fair that my kid had access to their own computer and all the books they wanted to read, etc., when others didn't? No, but parents are still going to help their kids. If we had something resembling a really fair system, kids and adults of any age would be able to take classes and learn whatever, with as much help as they needed. It would be expensive, but fair. That isn't what we have.
- michaelt 2y ago
  It's pretty easy to give your kid loads of advantages without engaging in nepotism. The definition of nepotism is actually very narrow! You can teach them your trade. You can show them that education is important, modelling and rewarding behaviours like reading. You can make sure you've got time to be there for them. You can introduce them to your friends in other lines of work. You can check their homework and help them when they struggle, within reason. You can make sure they never need a part-time job to get by while in school. You can get them tutors whenever they're having trouble. You can get them extra tuition outside school. You can pay for them to go to a great college. You can cover their living expenses when they're working an unpaid internship. You can invest in their startup. You can assure you that even if their startup crashes and burns, you'll make sure they always have a roof over their head and food in their belly. You can buy them a house, pay their bills, gift them millions of dollars. And you can hire them to work for you - as long as you make a point to clearly not favour them in the workplace, by insisting they work hard every day, don't use your name, and that they start at the bottom and work their way up on their own merits. And you can overlap these things! In your role as CEO give them an unpaid internship in the mailroom of your company, and in your role as a parent give them a $10,000/month allowance? Technically not nepotism. The only things you can't do is give them undeserved promotions, or hire them directly into a senior job.
  - lo_zamoyski 2y ago
    And it doesn't need to be the mail room (though that's not a bad thing to have exposure to, perhaps, but circumstances will determine what's appropriate). The most important thing is not to put them in a position that harms[0] the company and that they're not (at least not yet) qualified for. This is not only bad for the company, but for the child, as they are not put a position that allows them to grow, but one in which they can't help but fail in. So it's a failure of parenting. [0] "Harm" doesn't need to be catastrophic. Misuse of company funds is a kind of theft, and paying someone a salary who is basically on perpetual holiday is unjust, for example.

adamc 2y ago

Well... the "right answer" is going to be subjective. But I think parents providing for their children is going to win out 1000 times out of 1000. It's got human psychology and biology behind it. If doing what is "right" means I have to hamstring my kid's chances, then I'm going to pass on "right" (or, more likely, re-orient my thinking to make it not "right") and help my kid.

staunton 2y ago
You seem to be claiming that nepotism is good and that it is prevalent in all societies. Surely I misunderstood? Most societies do demand that workers for important roles be selected on merit or based on other criteria known to all participants, and not based on some individual's wish to care for their family or friends. This is without anyone thinking of such a wish as illegitimate. However , acting on it is still nepotism and societies impose this prohibition on its members because it benefits all. In this sense, "parents providing for their children" is "losing out" in certain important domains all around the world.
- swatcoder 2y ago
  > Most societies do demand that workers for important roles be selected on merit or based on other criteria known to all participants Most societies become pretty practical after a while, and strive for people to be reliable and adequate for the roles they're appointed to play and celebrate the occasional master of some craft or pursuit. Being groomed for an opportunity from childhood, under the attention of one's family, often delivers on those and so a lot of societies don't worry about it except when it's obvious that somebody completely incompetent has ended up responsible for some influential or essential role. It's actually a very peculiar modern experiment to expect every role to somehow be filled by the most capable person and for every person to be appointed a role that they're personally passionate about. Maybe it'll give us some amazing Star Trek utopia someday, but you don't see that idea expressed very much in history and so we don't really have reason to know what will happen if we try to make it so.
  - staunton 2y ago
    There's a very long history of trying to establish merit-based selection of government officials in, e.g., china. That's not to say there wasn't a lot of nepotism anyway, but I think it's also undeniable that the state was trying to reduce it, rather than just accepting it as normal and unavoidable. Nowadays I would also guess that the majority of people across the globe live in societies where nepotism is conceived of as bad. There might still be various amounts of it but people generally tend to discourage or punish nepotism when they can.
  - jltsiren 2y ago
    It's not enough to strive for people to be reliable and adequate. You need a system that selects reliably for such people. Being groomed for a job from childhood is not reliable enough. Many people will be good enough for the job, but many will not. The problem becomes bigger the higher up you go in the society. Meritocracy won, both in economy and in war, because the people in charge in non-meritocratic societies are too often grossly incompetent.
  - adamc 2y ago
    Yeah, this. Also, in most advanced societies, it isn't particularly likely that your kid wants to work at whatever you were doing. But there are a bunch of services helping "teach the test" for kids going to college/grad school, and in very, very many ways, middle class (or better off) parents do strive to give their kids tons of advantages that other kids do not have. Is it fair that my kid had access to their own computer and all the books they wanted to read, etc., when others didn't? No, but parents are still going to help their kids. If we had something resembling a really fair system, kids and adults of any age would be able to take classes and learn whatever, with as much help as they needed. It would be expensive, but fair. That isn't what we have.
michaelt 2y ago
It's pretty easy to give your kid loads of advantages without engaging in nepotism. The definition of nepotism is actually very narrow! You can teach them your trade. You can show them that education is important, modelling and rewarding behaviours like reading. You can make sure you've got time to be there for them. You can introduce them to your friends in other lines of work. You can check their homework and help them when they struggle, within reason. You can make sure they never need a part-time job to get by while in school. You can get them tutors whenever they're having trouble. You can get them extra tuition outside school. You can pay for them to go to a great college. You can cover their living expenses when they're working an unpaid internship. You can invest in their startup. You can assure you that even if their startup crashes and burns, you'll make sure they always have a roof over their head and food in their belly. You can buy them a house, pay their bills, gift them millions of dollars. And you can hire them to work for you - as long as you make a point to clearly not favour them in the workplace, by insisting they work hard every day, don't use your name, and that they start at the bottom and work their way up on their own merits. And you can overlap these things! In your role as CEO give them an unpaid internship in the mailroom of your company, and in your role as a parent give them a $10,000/month allowance? Technically not nepotism. The only things you can't do is give them undeserved promotions, or hire them directly into a senior job.
- lo_zamoyski 2y ago
  And it doesn't need to be the mail room (though that's not a bad thing to have exposure to, perhaps, but circumstances will determine what's appropriate). The most important thing is not to put them in a position that harms[0] the company and that they're not (at least not yet) qualified for. This is not only bad for the company, but for the child, as they are not put a position that allows them to grow, but one in which they can't help but fail in. So it's a failure of parenting. [0] "Harm" doesn't need to be catastrophic. Misuse of company funds is a kind of theft, and paying someone a salary who is basically on perpetual holiday is unjust, for example.