Only by the qualifications the very same set for themselves. My argument would be that not only are the qualifications of merit within this system flawed, they often are shit managers even within the system, let alone terrible leaders for humanity in general.
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Yes, the point is that when people who believe themselves to be rational people think about the importance of meritocracy, it makes them do anti-fair things. Like most clever econ/psychology experiments, it sidesteps the messy question of what the concept actually IS, and lets the result pivot on whatever the beholder thinks it is and what associations with their biases that evokes. The revelation of their understanding of the concept is actually part of the findings.
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Trump spent the entire game in the dugout jerking off, and both the conservative and liberal press spent so much time breathlessly covering it that they forgot to so much as report the final score.
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Sorry if this is all too familiar to others, but I didn’t study much philosophy in college (despite being a sociology major). Learning about Jon Haidt’s Moral Foundations theory from the Very Bad Wizards podcast (Ep. 3)* was really thought provoking for me and made me think about this conversation, particularly the difference between the innate moral value of meritocracy vs. the question of whether a valuing meritocracy creates more moral outcomes in terms of people’s lived experience.
*thanks bber who originally linked to this podcast…
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Thanks! Does it deal with differing definition of moral? Because that was Ayn Rand’s whole argument, that a society that allows for the maximum individual freedom for those with wealth was inherently moral.
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The episode was about moral relativity, and so morality was allowed to mean whatever members of a particular culture defined them as. It was about defining the facets of morality, rather than comparing them. Related to the morality of wealth, they did discuss that all cultures seem to hold “preventing harm/providing comfort” as innately moral. However conservatives tend to hold “hierarchy/respect of authority” as an innate morality (regardless of how it affects other moral facets) as more equally important to the other moral facets.
ETA: They didn’t discuss the liberty/oppression one deeply, but some interpretation of that would probably fir the libertarian worldview. Interestingly, they also talked about taking into account the history of oppression of various groups is also on the “liberty/oppression” scale, i.e. belief in reparations.
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Did you come up with that? Because if you did, I think I love you!! 
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Um… I think you may have a different definition of ‘merit’ than I do.
There, I agree.
It’s all fucked.
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You’d be right. I Blame my parents.
Woah, is that a poster? That poem is um, in my personal pantheon.
want want want
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The biggest advantage helping people “succeed” in positions of power is coming from a position of power to begin with.
And privileged people often ignore or reverse cause and effect when it suits them. Think of all the historical arguments where limited roles for minorities was evidence of their “diminished capacity” rather than limited roles being assigned.
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Good point, Sorry for being “that guy”.
He an excellent case study for the “believing in meritocracy makes you act like a dick” point though.
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Simple. You give all of them an equal raise. In reality, it is impossible to apportion the returns. The “worst” employee may have seemed worst because they engaged in non-direct profit making activities that made the “better” employees more productive. The only correct solution is to pay all employees the same amount, regardless of the role (because whether the job is harder or more important is purely subjective), and regardless of their “performance” (ditto).
Yep.
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It’s worth mentioning that Michael Young’s other children turned out to be OK.
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Exactly. If wealth and power were closely correlated with “training and qualifications” then American companies would be outsourcing executive positions to the best MBAs that India had to offer instead of just looking there when they want to save a few dollars an hour on what they pay coders or customer service reps.
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Thanks.
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