This is the definition I am using:
a system, organization, or society in which people are chosen and moved into positions of success, power, and influence on the basis of their demonstrated abilities and merit.
Every ‘ocracy’ is some kind of meritocracy. It’s just a matter of what the merit is and how it’s measured. They all suck because manipulators break them all.
Aristocracy says people who are in power are there because their fathers did too.
Which is the basis of their merit, in an aristocratic system.
Which they think is some kind of merit, and it’s not really too outlandish. There’s a pretty good chance that you’re awesome if your dad is awesome.
Institution by natural selection
Sounds right until you realize the system invalidates itself by making selection unnatural. 🤣
Do I believe it could work? Maybe.
Do I believe it’s been seriously tried to a significant degree? Nah.“Wherever you go, there you are” also applies to the human condition and any kind of whatever-cracy. At the end of the day, people are people and a lot of people suck, there’s no fix for that.
For anyone interested, Wikipedia provides some arguments against meritocracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_meritocracy
Meritocracy is argued to be a myth because, despite being promoted as an open and accessible method of achieving upward class mobility under neoliberal or free market capitalism, wealth disparity and limited class mobility remain widespread, regardless of individual work ethic.
I feel like a true meritocracy would be a system kind of like Plato’s republic where children are separated from their parents as early as possible and are all raised from the exact same level, so the only thing that sets them apart will be individual talent (their merit). If not this, then the wealth, status and connections of your family will influence your opportunities, which runs counter to meritocracy.
Safe to say it’s not a system I’d want to live in.
It’s a good idea in theory, but there’s a few problems:
- Wealth and power above a certain level tends to become generational no matter how meritorious the origin
- People who are less capable through disability, ilness, generational poverty or anything else not their fault would still be left behind
- A lot of jobs and other functions can benefit from several different skillsets, some of which aren’t mutually inclusive
- Who decides who’s best? Who decides who decides? Etc ad infinitum.
Regarding wealth, it doesn’t have to with a heavy enough estate tax, AKA anti-aristocracy tax.
Depends what you mean by “believe in”. Could it work? Sure, why not. Do we live in one? Hell fuck no.
Don’t organisations already follow this? Atleast for their workers.
People getting into a public or private job have to show that they are eligible.Regarding meritocracy at level of society:
I think it’s going to be difficult in reality.- Who appraises the merit of people? Who defines, maintains and updates the standards/methods used for the appraisal?
- Is there a system for continuous quality check? It’d be needed to maintain the system as a meritocracy.
- How is the quality check system preserved in the system?
- Who appraises those who appraise?
In the case of an organisation, the leaders/owners of the org can choose workers with merit. But the owners themselves are not appraised, right? Unless they are in some co-operative org or so.
Perfect meritocracy seems very difficult to implement for the whole of society.
I think democracy(which gives due importance to scientific temper and obviously human life) is a decent enough system. We can iterate on it to bring up the merit in the society and its people as a whole
I don’t.
The core issue: Who determines merit, ability, and position? The people who write the rules are the actual government, and governments secure their own power. Like every flawless paper-government system, it crumples as soon as the human element wets the paper.
However, assuming the rule book could be written flawlessly, with “perfect” selfless humans writing the initial rules and then removing themselves from power, there are unsolved issues:
- Popularity contests in determining merit. (I like Johnny Depp better than Amber. Who loses more status?)
- Comparing apples to oranges. (Are Athletes or Artists more worthy, what about the Plumbers and Mailmen?)
- Power corrupts.
- Do morals and ethics have a say in merit? (Save the entire planet, then start kicking cats. Still a hero?)
- How long does a merit last? (When a champion, or athlete, is no longer fit, are they de-positioned? Look at Rome.)
- Brilliant mathematicians get rewarded with what? (Better supercomputers, or political power? What qualifies them to make policy?)
The core issue: Who determines merit, ability, and position? The people who write the rules are the actual government, and governments secure their own power.
You touched on a really important point here: when humans are judging skill, it’s subjective and not really meritocratic.
One of my favorite psychology professors says that people really like the idea of meritocracy, when it’s actually present. He gives the example of sports, and how people aren’t bitter about a particular team winning, or that there’s big inequality between the players, and that the reason people are okay with that inequality is the presence of the playing field and the high speed cameras and whatnot means meritocracy is the actual basis for reward, not personality politics.
In business, government, etc it’s all people judging other people, and on an individual basis. A group of people evaluating is better, like star ratings for an uber driver are probably more trustable than performance evaluations from someone’s boss. The latter can be so heavily distorted by that one person’s judgment.
The ideal is using measurable performance as the measure of “merit”. Like when people run a marathon. As long as the course is visible to confirm nobody’s cheating, that marathon time is yours in a way your degree or your job or your salary isn’t.
It’s also why people are so in favor of free markets deciding resource allocation rather than people: the free market is at least a large crowdsourced combination of everyone’s needs, instead of just some mental image of those needs in the mind of a few committee memebers.
I truly appreciate your contribution to this long dead conversation. It is to my regret I didn’t respond sooner, but I cannot seem to withhold my desire to share. The following could be summed up as, “Everything wrong with sports. Merit is ambiguous. People abuse ambiguity for their own gain.”
the presence of the playing field and the high speed cameras and whatnot means meritocracy is the actual basis for reward,
to confirm nobody’s cheating
Cheating in this context might be summed up as: Violating rules, unsporting. Possibly underhanded, deception, fraud, or trickery. A disparity or unfairness through action.
Sports being a meritocracy is absolutely true on a small scale. However, with a macro view some disparities come to light.
Disparities:
- Genetics.
- Environmental development. (Such as being trained from a young age, being able to afford a better coach, better nutrition, more opportunity, etc, etc.)
- Trickery. {An American football case, where the quarterback confuses the opposing team by standing up with the ball and walking toward the goal, comes to mind.)
- Undetected cheating. (Performance enhancing drug usage. Not illegal doping, but doping that hasn’t been determined as such yet. Delaying select competitors before they get to the field. Etc.)
- Luck. (The wind blowing the ball. An opposing competitor stepping on an uneven spot of turf, or their gear malfunctioning,)
- Individual contribution and shared merit. (Do the players on the team who didn’t contribute still gain merit?)
Exempted due to applicability: (read low or protracted defensibly and a vague determination of where “the game” begins and ends; philosophical)
- Player selection process. (Sure, the wisest managers would ideally select the best players, but offense and emotions may occlude foresight.)
- Who gets selected to be pulled off the bench? {A big can of worms.}
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- Depends on the coach, instead of the player.
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- The player not played gains less or no merit.
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- Argument to be had about the coach being the chess player of the game and merit based on strategies employed, sharing player’s merit with the coach.
- Player trading.
- Corrupt judges/referees.
- Rigged games.
- Politics influencing decisions.
- Uncooperative players inhibiting success.
- Cultural biases.
people really like the idea of meritocracy
Back to the first half of my original point. People do really like the idea of meritocracy… when it aligns with their own views. “Merit” is founded on virtue, worth, or value. And all three depend on the evaluator.
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For instance, a football fan at a baseball match may not find the players very worthy, because it isn’t football.
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Another instance, is cheating meritorious? A superior strategy requiring exceptional ability to successfully sabotage your opponent. (Devil’s advocate, and a very Chinese sentiment. I’ll not be defending this point, but it is wise to consider the biases inherent in personal culture determining what merit is.)
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Alternatively honor and respect determine merit. Also highly subjective, just look at Jihad contrasted to The Crusades.
This leads to the other half: Anything subjective is subject to abuse, because generally humans are selfish and tribal. It’s how our ancestors survived. Any permanent governing system must account for, incorporate, protect, benefit from, and forcefully constrain or alter the governed’s nature as necessary for the benefit or balancing of the governed and the governing system’s continued future. Anything else eventually leads to revolution or collapse.
In truth, I believe a perpetual motion is impossible. Something must continually power and correct the machine running the humans but humans aren’t capable of doing so. We will likely continue to have revolutions and disparities caused by revolutions until our collapse. The best we can hope to do, is make living on this rock less miserable for our fellow inhabitants.
Please have a lovely day.
All of these arguments try to argue that implementing meritocracy perfectly is impossible.
But ask yourself, what is the alternative? A system in which the most capable person isn’t in charge? Should we go back to bloodlines, or popularity contests, or maybe use a lottery?
I agree it’s very difficult to determine merit, and even more difficult to stop power struggles from messing with the evaluation, or with the implementation. But I would still prefer a system that at least tries to be meritocratic and comes up short, to a system that has given up entirely on the concept.
I’ll try to answer some of your questions, as best as I understand it:
Who determines merit, ability, and position?
Ideally, a group of peers would vote for someone within the group, who is the most capable, with outside supervision to prevent abuses.
Popularity contests in determining merit
Popularity shouldn’t factor into it. Only ability. (and there’s no doubt Depp is the better actor :P )
Are Athletes or Artists more worthy
Each one is worthy within the scope of their domain of expertise, in which they have demonstrated merit.
Power corrupts
Always true in every system. That’s why we need checks and balances.
Save the entire planet, then start kicking cats. Still a hero?
If kicking cats is wrong, it should be against the law, and no one should be above the law. All other things being equal, whoever has the most capacity to save the planet should be the one to do it.
How long does a merit last?
For as long as you can demonstrate it. If someone better comes along, they should take your place.
Brilliant mathematicians get rewarded with what?
More mathematical problems. And ideally, also lots of money and babes.
At the end of the day, it’s a cultural problem. Meritocracy can only work if there’s a critical mass of people who believe in it, understand it, and enforce it socially. The same can be said of democracy, capitalism, and basically any other social order.
Thank you for your insight. Please forgive me for the tongue in cheek responses on a few select thoughts.
system in which the most capable person isn’t in charge?
Every system since time immemorial. And which will continue until “most capable” is better defined, objectively determinable, and implemented by the greatest power.
popularity contests
The foundation of every democratic, republic, and individual choice based system today.
it’s very difficult to determine merit
Very true. Considering all people under any one governing system would never agree on what is virtuous, worthy, valuable, honorable, or respectable. Just try to convince people who believe, “If you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying,” to believe otherwise. Many Chinese believe if you didn’t cheat to succeed, it’s your fault for failing. Consider it a pitfall of cultural reconciliation.
a group of peers would vote for someone within the group
Each one is worthy within the scope of their domain of expertise, in which they have demonstrated merit.
How are resources distributed between groups? Equally? Every time a new group arrives a new slice of equal pie is collected piecemeal from the other groups and handed over? Do we compare apples and oranges to determine who gets more resources. Who sits in the “administration” group to judge merit between two disagreeing groups?
How long does a merit last?
For as long as you can demonstrate it. If someone better comes along, they should take your place.
What’s a retirement plan look like? Or is this still an ownership system where you can hold on to any property indefinitely and determine it’s ownership upon death?
Brilliant mathematicians get rewarded with what?
More mathematical problems. And ideally, also lots of money and babes.
A good workhorse is rewarded with more work. A never truer statement. Merit sounds exhausting today.
it’s a cultural problem. Meritocracy can only work if there’s a critical mass of people who believe in it, understand it, and enforce it socially. The same can be said of democracy, capitalism, and basically any other social order.
I’m 60% with you. Regardless of how detrimental a government is, culture controls most of how we think and feel, just look at government trust ratings by country. However, there’s still more to be accounted for. Implementation and population still count for something. Keeping culture unchanged is futile, everyone comes up with their own ideals and injects them into the next generation, thinking it’ll make things better. Not to mention corporate ideals, such as the diamond’s are forever from jewelers, personal responsibility from tobacco, apple is a status symbol from Apple, and on and so forth.
Back to topic: Most people don’t and won’t care about the government, they just want the government to solve their problems or get out of their way. Getting a population to “believe in [government], understand it, and enforce it socially” is a much taller order than it sounds. For verification: the Americans, with the two most rubbish candidates you could possibly find, all seem to think voting for anyone other than rubbish R or rubbish D is throwing their vote away. Let alone the significant remaining percentage who think their vote doesn’t count for anything at all.
Checks and balances entail compromises and disagreements, which individually prestigious people should be subject to. As you said, “no one should be above the law.” If the meritocracy is not the law, who is the law?
Thank you for taking the time to read and think.
Sorry for the delay, I don’t visit here very often. But thanks for engaging, and excuse my know-it-all tone.
I think there’s a basic misunderstanding regarding meritocracy. It is not something that only occurs in the top branches of the government. It’s something that should occur in every level of every organization, in every office and in every pay-grade. It’s not meant to solve the question of “who is the supreme leader”, because such a question is impossible. It’s meant to describe how should society function.
And which will continue until “most capable” is better defined
That is sophism imho. We don’t have to have the perfect definition, we just need to be closer to it than the alternatives.
The foundation of every democratic, republic, and individual choice based system today.
Popularity contests are a bad way of making choices, and it’s a big reason for why modern democracies have so many problems. Also, they are very often rigged, which is how you end up with “shit sandwich” situations (or Putin).
all people under any one governing system would never agree on what is virtuous, worthy, valuable, honorable, or respectable
There will never be a 100% agreement on what is true, or what is beautiful, or what is virtuous. But if we aim there, we can get closer than if we don’t.
How are resources distributed between groups?
Free market. Bid on problems. There are many possible algorithms. Right we do the worst option, in which the governing body distribute funds based on political power.
Or is this still an ownership system where you can hold on to any property indefinitely
I definitely believe in private property, if that’s what you’re asking. I think anyone who doesn’t is either dumb or delusional. Indefinitely is a bit much, but it should last long enough to be worth the effort.
A good workhorse is rewarded with more work. A never truer statement. Merit sounds exhausting today.
The idea is that you get enough rewards (money, social capital, etc.) that you will find the work worthwhile. Also, a lot of people enjoy doing things that they are good at. Either way, there is a point when you contributed enough that you can just peace out for the rest of your life, aka retirement. This is already semi-possible even in today’s broken system.
they just want the government to solve their problems or get out of their way
That’s a problem by itself. Governments are very bad at solving complex problems.
all seem to think voting for anyone other than rubbish R or rubbish D is throwing their vote away
That’s kind of true, because Americans refuse to implement a secondary choice. Just one little change would solve so much. (not that there aren’t 1000s of other problems).
If the meritocracy is not the law, who is the law?
I don’t really understand the question. The law is a bunch of rules, chosen by people in power. Ideally, those people would be competent, and create good laws. In my view, any system of law that doesn’t periodically remove or refactors outdated laws is incompetent. Yes, that’s basically everywhere.
You could try to enforce meritocracy in law. It would definitely help, but I don’t think it would be sufficient without cultural adoption.
It’s like you keep trying to find “who’s on top”, but in a perfect world no one is. Power should always be checked, and balanced. Monopolies should always be curtailed, both in the private and public sector. Meritocracy is just one algorithm out of many, like the free market, in order to have a better and more efficient society.
Hope that clears things up.
[Meritocracy] is not something that only occurs in the top branches of the government. It’s something that should occur in every level of every organization, in every office and in every pay-grade.
Please look into Feudalism. Then please look into why it has faded into obscurity. The Japanese had a particularly poignant understanding of it.
The idea is that you get enough rewards (money, social capital, etc.) that you will find the work worthwhile.
This is capitalism or social credit.
“who’s on top”, but in a perfect world no one is.
Popularity contests are a bad way of making choices
This is anarchism. Which leads to mob rule, the definition of power in the majority, and then to fragmented autocracies. ie Individuals grouping up to gain advantages then forming gangs, tribes, and engaging power struggles.
Right we do the worst option, in which the governing body distribute funds based on political power.
Which country is “we”?
The law is a bunch of rules, chosen by people in power
Not laws, ‘the law’. As in the determiner of how the rules apply to the people. This is typically the police, legal interpreters, courts, on up until you hit judges and legislators, who hold the power to modify laws.
We don’t have to have the perfect definition
Because perfection is an illusion. The reason behind outdated-laws, governments struggling with complexity, and loopholes is precisely because any time there is ambiguity, there exists abuse. Meritocracy being founded on an ideal implementation where everyone in society supports the idea and nobody tries to abuse the system is folly, bound to fail at first brush with ambiguity.
There are many possible algorithms.
Forgive my bluntness, but your ideals are half baked, complexities waved away as if the pieces will fall into place after taking the leap, and tried but not studied. You would need a much better understanding of history and the governments that have already existed before you could convince me meritocracy can survive beyond dreams and ideals.
Apologies. I wish you luck on your journey through life.
That’s a very condescending comment. Maybe I came across as condescending too. Either way, if your criticism was supposed to be helpful, I’m sorry to say that it isn’t. You didn’t provide any evidence that I’m wrong. From my perspective, it sounds like you just don’t understand me, so you decided to give up.
Anyway, I’m not that enthusiastic about debating strangers over the internet, I only replied because you sounded curious. So I’m equally happy to bid you farewell.
I’m sorry I caused you to feel that way.
From my perspective I had expectations I was speaking with someone who had intensely considered a governing system they were fond of and were intimate with its faults. Instead, I’m rather put out to be speaking with flashes of inspiration, as rapidly as they can form, to justify or mitigate any shortcomings.
While I might enjoy acting as a sounding board when expected, I’m feeling rather disappointed this wasn’t a debate.
Debating may be the purest form of sharing and refining ideas. My comment was not out of malice, but I apologise for the rude response and letting my emotions get the better of me.
It’s easily manipulated. We already have barrier to entry in several professions via required degrees and certifications. Those degrees and certifications require significant time and resources to attain. They can also be skewed to certain demographic a la old school SAT exams.
My own personal experience is the CPA exam. Passing it shows me nothing of one’s accounting abilities. I’ve seen people who pass it and I wonder how they tie their shoelaces in the morning without injuring themselves. I’ve seen others who haven’t passed it but are brilliant accountants.
All that exam tells me is that a person had resources to not work for six to nine months so they could study and pass the exam. That’s it.
But without it, you’re just not gonna go very far in the industry at all.
Then the AICPA keeps making the exam more difficult and whines that there’s a shortage of young talent.
So what “merit” are we going to measure in this hypothetical system?
I believe in the theory of a meritocracy, I even think it could work.
I don’t believe it exists anywhere in the world in practice where power and money are at play.
I think that when we do things we should generally listen to the person who best understands how to do it.
I don’t think that your position in life should be determined by it
I don’t think this would ever be achievable. It also sounds like a broader form of technocracy (to my very much unqualified brain)
I’m confused about the definition. They are moved? Forcefully if needed, or they are offered the position? Also what kind of position are they moved to you mean? Like the person best in the world in welding, they will atrificially be placed in a position of influece? Influece over what, policy? Culture? Or they will be the boss of other welders? How is the demostrated ability measured? Do people take exams in like welding to compete on who is better than someone else? If so, is the test the only thing that matters? If the best welder in the world is also a complete asshole, they still get the position of power? If not, where is the trade-off on how good a welder do you have to be to be a certain amount of asshole?
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I believe in a theoretical meritocracy but I think there are some pitfalls. We have a market that’s very efficient at rewarding incredibly unproductive people. The correlation between money and skill in the modern world just… isn’t. So we’d really need a better evaluation system… if we had that I think it’d be achievable.
Love the idea, though.
I agree, there would have to be measures in place to prevent the “promote to the level of incompetence” style of meritocracy that is prevalent already. There needs to be a system of recognizing that the person in any given position has the skills and abilities that make them awesome at that specific job, and rewarding them appropriately without requiring them to justify it by taking on tasks that they’re not suited for.
The idea that workers should always be gunning for a promotion is one of the worst parts of what people think a meritocracy is. But how else do you determine how much they should be paid?
Hell, I only consented to management because the company stopped listening to frontline developers. We’ve got a serious problem in the west with title fixation.
