Believing in "meritocracy" makes you act like a dick

[emo_pinata]

@green_machine

Just because the merit is unearned, doesn’t mean that it isn’t merit.

I’m pretty sure “an earned reward that was unearned” means it isn’t an “earned reward.” Which so sort of the entire point of the Meritocracy being a bad thing.

[smulder]

@LapsedPacifist

Yeah, but what’s merit? If you root about and examine what people mean by it,

PREVIOUSLY ON BOING BOING

Study: Whites favor meritocracy when meritocracy favors whites

[LapsedPacifist]

Well sure. For some people (for a lot of people!) the function for ‘merit’ is “Will it say I deserve it?” But critiquing any position by pointing out that some people who hold it are malicious and/or idiots is a fully general argument. My point was that arguing about meritocracy doesn’t work even when you posit consistent and non-malicious believers in meritocracy precisely because it is a term flexible unto tautology.

[Melz2]

Obligatory:

[Brainspore]

@green_machine

Every level of society tries to order itself according to the same principals, and it’s all part of the same gestalt.

Nobody is saying hard work and merit have no effect whatsoever on one’s station in life. We’re saying that, with very few exceptions, “merit” will at best nudge you up or down a level or two within your social class but won’t determine who gets to be in the ruling class. Yet we’re all supposed to act as if the people who have all the wealth and power in our society did something to “merit” that status. Nuts to that.

[Auld_Lang_Syne]

@generic_name

In other words, believing in the ideal of a true meritocracy is OK, like believing in the basic goodness of humanity, but that doesn’t mean it’s real.

In addition to what @Melz2 said, another thing making a “true” meritocracy unachievable is the problem of measuring and comparing. There are two unsupported assumptions that people seem to make about things like "the best person for the job, or intelligence (IQ), or teacher evaluations: that it can be reliably and meaningfully measured and that that measurement can be represented with a single real number.
The truth is that the only ways we have of measuring some of these are pretty imprecise and full of biases, and despite the famous IQ test, when these qualities are measurable it is generally only possible to do that multi-dimensionally. For example, there’s spatial intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, and several other ways of being intelligent.
And the concept of “best” only works in a single dimension.

[green_machine]

@emo_pinata

Just because the merit is unearned, doesn’t mean that it isn’t merit.

I’m pretty sure “an earned reward that was unearned” means it isn’t an “earned reward.” Which so sort of the entire point of the Meritocracy being a bad thing.

Nah, it’s meta. Merit unearned means that one deserves something, but doesn’t deserve to deserve it. One can be the most qualified for a job by dint of pure luck. And really since any of us could have been born severely disabled, we all (those of us who are employed) have our jobs in large part thanks to luck.

[generic_name]

@green_machine

The workers can decide by committee who will do each job. Life as a series of popularity contests is about as transparent and egalitarian as it gets.

“Popularity contests”. . .

If the workers want the job to be done well, then they will vote for the person they think is best. But yes, if the person most qualified is also an unbearable asshole then the most qualified may not get the job. That too may have a benefit in terms of worker morale. Similarly a manager hiring his best buddy might be great for his own morale, less so for everyone else in the company.

I suppose if we’re going to make assumptions like “just because the merit is unearned doesn’t mean it isn’t merited” then why not also assume the workers will actually assign someone they 've seen is qualified to get that position?

If the workers have a vital stake in the well-being of the company then logically they should.

[Auld_Lang_Syne]

@pfh

Academia is also a meritocracy.

[green_machine]

@generic_name

I suppose if we’re going to make assumptions like “just because the merit is unearned doesn’t mean it isn’t merited” then why not also assume the workers will actually assign someone they 've seen is qualified to get that position?

If the workers have a vital stake in the well-being of the company then logically they should.

I’m not sure what I could have done to have had my post about Parecon taken as sincere, but it was. That’s why the first thing I wrote about it was “This sincerely is a good answer.” I’m utterly serious when I write that assigning jobs through an election of those most impacted by the job is about the most reasonable system possible because those people have the best perspective for gauging the merit of those up for the job.

Certainly it won’t be perfect. Local union leaders are already elected by the unionized workers, including leaders in the teacher’s unions in the states where we recently had wildcat strikes.

[generic_name]

Poor person complains about wealth inequality. Wealthy person responds with “hey, life is unfair, get used to it.”

Poor people vote en masse to change the system so they get a better chance at advancement. Wealthy person complains “hey, that’s not fair!”

[nojaboja]

you mean temporarily embarrassed millionaires a la John Steinbeck

http://www.temporarilyembarrassedmillionaires.org

which goes a long way to explain Trump and all those people voting for him.

[generic_name]

I tip my frayed and torn faux silk top hat to whoever made that website. Well done.

[llazy8]

Suckers, sure, but always reminds me of a phrase I once heard about child abuse that I suspect applies to being exploited as well: you unconsciously think that if it’s somehow your fault you can do something about it.

[anon41977465]

you know one of the operative rules of meritocracy is that only dicks really have merit, so it’s actually a kind of dickocracy.

[xhonk]

Academia is also a meritocracy.

You’ve never tried to get research done in academia, have you?

[xhonk]

Kakistocockracy!

[anon41977465]

crackercockocracy.

[green_machine]

@pfh

Academia is also a meritocracy. In some ways it avoid this, for example hiding author names when papers are reviewed (sometimes). However, career progression and grant systems are very much a meritocracy with all the problems you’ve described.

I think there’s a fair bit of good will and interest here to try things out, if you have any ideas.

It’s amazing the number of people who skimmed this post and didn’t grok that you’re using meritocracy as a pejorative. I guess the temptation to misconstrue is too great to resist when the opportunity to post a gif is on the line.

[green_machine]

@LapsedPacifist

Meritocracy is incoherent as a position. Not because it is stupid, but because it is obvious. Who should get desirable but scarce thing? Why, the person with the most merit.

Yeah, but what’s merit? If you root about and examine what people mean by it, you quickly realize that the above statement can be reformulated as 'The person who should get the scarce thing is the person who should get the scarce thing."

Young coined the term “Meritocracy” in 1958, and at that time it meant what you describe – a ruling elite who justify their positions as being deserved, with the evidence being that they have those positions. Also in 1958, “gay” meant “happy” and “queer” meant “strange,” so allow that that the term may have shifted in meaning over the past 60 years. Today it’s generally taken to mean that positions go to those best qualified to hold them, with the qualifications determined according to some standard. When people talk about college admissions as meritocratic, they mean that the students with the best academic records get into the best colleges and earn the most scholarship money. That’s why it’s a scandal when we find cases where that isn’t how it works.