Speaking of which, this is an interesting interview:
One of the points raised is that ancient Athenians would have been disturbed by our modern habit of electing people to political office by vote, instead of selecting them by random chance.
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Both of these are arguably covered by our modern system of corporate contract law and NDAs.
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Maybe. That’s an interesting point.
I think the loyalty both ways bit is dubious. It is in there I suppose - there’s a mutual duty of trust and confidence between employer and employee in the common law at least which arguably is a hangover from feudalism.
That is of course at least partly why so much work is done via other kinds of relationships these days - ‘freelance’ contracts, etc. All of those pesky obligations to employees don’t apply - or at least the ‘lord’ tries to get people to do the work without entering into vassalage.
NDAs are of course generally only ever intended to be one way only.
Either way, the view the scurriers have of their duty to the great man is not exactly:
“Thought must be the harder, heart be the keener,
mind must be the greater, while our strength lessens.
Here lies our prince all hewn,
good one on grit. He may always mourn
who from this war-play thinks now to turn.
My life is old: I will not away;
but I myself beside my lord,
by so loved a man, think to lie.”
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I feel you might be putting too much weight on the “equitable” nature of the feudal social contract. It was pretty lop-sided in benefit, and expectation of mutual loyalty, too.
Feudal lords expected people to bleed and die for them. That expectation would also have generally been one-way.
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I feel that for a lot of the pro-meritocracy arguments in this thread you could swap out “meritocracy” with “communism” and you’d have the same argument. The theory is sound. It’s the practical implementations that most of the critique is about. Discussions where one party talks about the theories and the other party about the practical implementation are usually not very rewarding.
Cost of living is also a lot lower in India so the amount of money that would have to be spread around to make the quality of life equal could be a lot less then you suggest.
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If some rich do-gooder wants to cure blindness or something like that, give them a plaque. But dont go financially rewarding people just for looking like decent human beings.
All people have merit. Piling on more merit for some folk, means theres less to go around for everyone else. A “more perfect meritocracy” is kinda like a “more perfect slavery” where everyone is extra careful to enslave only those who truly deserve it. There’s no such thing. And yeah, people who want such a thing are assholes.
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Let’s take a look at a “true” meritocracy for a moment. In true meritocracy children are not loved because they are innately lovable, they are loved for obeying and honoring their parents. A true meritocracy would never allow panhandling, or food stamps, or any other need-based subsidies.
There is no grace, no forgiveness, no generosity in the meritocratic ideal. Anything good that flows to someone, has to have gotten there because it was judged an appropriate reward.
People who claim to disbelieve in heaven and hell, still cling to the possibility of meritocracy. But these are philosophically equivalent ideals. In each case, reward and punishment must always flow from judgement of character.
In one case, its a supreme being that manages the spreadsheets, in the other, its the “wisdom of the marketplace”. They are both nonsense, and they both serve the same broken agenda.
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How does coming from a well to do family qualify someone to manage a plant?
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No. At this point, we are a globalized society, whether we admit that or not. How we got here matters (exploitation, colonialism, etc), but we ARE here. Capital moves around the globe every day, but we are pushing against that same movement of human beings to move freely. We in the west STILL exploit the global south for it’s vast natural wealth and we don’t expect the people there to benefit from that? It’s absurd.
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It doesn’t in and of itself, but in the case where coming from a good family resulted in superior mental and physical health, a better education, more opportunities for relevant experience, and a larger network of relevant connections, then it led to advantages that do make one better qualified to manage a plant. It’s facile to say “The root cause of every advantage is just luck so really everyone is equally qualified to do everything.”
Um… dude. No. That’s… wow. That’s fucked up, really fucked up eugenics bullshit.
Which no one here said, except you, just now.
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Nope. It comes down to better access to medical care enjoyed by privileged people.
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If you want a good example of why meritocracy is BS look at that other boing boing post about Facebook and Fox News. In that case sensational, enraging news has “won” on its own merit - which is to say it attracts attention and engages people. But that doesn’t mean in any way it’s a good thing.
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No, you’re saying it’s better breeding, which is eugenics. You said NOTHING about health care until I called you out. And a rich family is not a good family, necessarily. Witness the family in the white house. Wealth and privilege doesn’t equate to good, and if you think it does, you’re really buying the bullshit that they peddle to justify themselves.
Also, healthcare is a human right, not a commodity. You shouldn’t get it because you have money, you should get it because you’re ill…
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I don’t see how that isn’t “fucked up, really fucked up eugenics bullshit.”
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I’m not sure how you can decouple physical health from access to healthcare. I’m definitely not talking about eugenics, which hasn’t ever proven to yield real-world advantages – it’s quackery.
Also you edited your post after I quoted you to change “good family” to “well to do family,” then called me out on equating the two. Stop shifting goal posts every time I poke a hole in your argument.
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Eugenics is about breeding (in theory; in reality it’s about racism). Medical care is about people’s access to doctors and medicine after having been born.
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After the article mentioned Michael Young I’m surprised nobody here has mentioned his son Toby Young. He’s a right wing “provocateur” journalist and unlike his father he is an ardent defender of meritocracy (and apparently eugenics if you look him up.) https://youngfoundation.org/uncategorized/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-meritocracy-by-toby-young/
Despite his belief in meritocracy he also accepted a place at Cambridge having spectacularly fallen short of the entry requirements (Apparently he didn’t even study a language but ignored that requirement and applied anyway). He got in because his Dad rang up the admissions office about a clerical error. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=M-nwIgHbrZgC&pg=PT28&dq=no+hands+clapping+philosophy,+politics+economics&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjSsKGlqY7hAhVQTxUIHWfCBeMQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=no%20hands%20clapping%20philosophy%2C%20politics%20economics&f=false
Also a bunch of his mates bailed on his stag do and he wrote a whole article about how friendship is a myth. https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/06/the-day-i-stopped-believing-in-the-friendship-myth/
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I was hoping to get though the comments without seeing his name. He doesn’t need the publicity.
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