Asklemmy

Yes, but it doesn't last for long. It just takes a few bad apples on top for the system to quickly go corrupt, which is why the powers on top need to constantly fear being changed by the people

No.

Who gets to determine what counts as merit? If it's the people with merit already, it's trivial to corrupt such a system. Think billionares.

And then, is everyone even given the opportunity to display their merit and if they are, is their merit recognised? I'm concerned esp. about people perceived by society to have inherently less merit. Think disabled people, old people, young people, women, people of colour, queer folks, etc.

And then, how does the system ensure that merit wasn't faked or even just exaggerated, how does it investigate and how does it respond? Does a sufficient amount of merit allow someone to cover up such things? If implemented, can and would this investigation power be used to punish people with low merit, those that are the most vulnereable?

And then, why do people that are not constantly being useful to the system deserve less and esp. if meritocracy is the only system in place, do some people not deserve to live at all? Here I'm talking about people that want to have a hobby or two or want to spend time with their friends and family, basically anything that doesn't give merit. I'm also talking about people that can't or don't want to be useful to society.

Beyond all this, meritocracy aims to replace the people's purpose in life with "being useful". And that's just a really miserable mindset to live with, where you feel guilt if you're not being useful all the time, where you constantly have thoughts like "am I good enough" or "am I trying hard enough".

Like eugenics, it's just another way for racists to push their racism under the guise of "science". It's not "corruptible", it comes pre-corrupted.

The word was coined as satire. Brain-dead ~~liberals~~ centrists took it seriously and, here we are.

I have been sadly disappointed by my 1958 book, The Rise of the Meritocracy. I coined a word which has gone into general circulation, especially in the United States, and most recently found a prominent place in the speeches of Mr Blair.

The book was a satire meant to be a warning (which needless to say has not been heeded) against what might happen to Britain between 1958 and the imagined final revolt against the meritocracy in 2033.

Down with meritocracy

Edited because too many people don't know what liberal means.

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.

SO LONG AS IT IS ACTUAL MERITOCRACY,

and not just privilege's gaslighting about it ( via making-certain that the poorest have inferior-nutrition, inferior-air-quality, worse-pollution, inferior-education, inferior-healthcare, etc ),

then yes, I hold it is The Proper Way.

However, it REQUIRES a truly-level playing-field, and not a 2-tiered "level" playing-field.

The Scandinavian system of ONLY public-schooling, so there is only 1 tier of education-quality, is a required component.

Student nutrition needs to be guaranteed.

Healthcare needs to work properly, for all.

Livingwage needs to be for all full-time work, and companies that try to hire only part-time for the real-work, have to have the profit-benefit of such hamstringing-of-many-lives cut from them all, permanently.

Fairness requries careful systematic, & openly-honest enforcement, because the DarkHexad: narcissism/machiavellianism/sociopathy-psychopathy/nihilism/sadism/systemic-dishonesty ALWAYS seeks to enforce abusive-exploitation, and it is underhandedly aggressive, and natural in our human nature.

Not mitigating it == accommodating it.

Salut, Namaste, & Kaizen, eh?

_ /\ _

That's too vague a definition. Like, if person A is an accomplished athlete, the best basketball player ever, I do not think his position of power or success should be, say, president. I think this is actually a very dangerous mindset derived from the capitalistic notion that success determines your--I'll call it value. If you're successful, you must be smart; If you're smart, you can be anything, even the president. Success is equal to wealth in these talking circles, and it sort of ends up as a backwards meritocracy. You gain merit measured by your success (wealth) instead of the other way around

But if you define it as a place in which positions of authority are given to people who have proven themselves knowledgeable and capable in the field in which the position of authority is being granted, I do believe in it in principle. I say that because principle and practice are rarely the same in politics and sociology. There are countless other factors that will impact your "success" that are not actually based on your expertise in the field. Better people have designed public transport, electric cars, social media, and spaceships than Elon Musk, yet the man sits in a position of tremendous influence. In a just meritocracy, we would never have heard his name

Which brings about the point that we have certain ideas as a culture (or maybe system) that awards some merits disproportionately more than others. Some will say his merit is in being a ruthless business man. He's good at that, I guess, so he should be the leader of the company. His "merit" of being a bad human being is being disproportionately rewarded compared to the merit of the scientists that actually design his spaceships, and the engineers that make them work. Meritocracy only really works in a closed system. The most capable archaeologist will be the head of the expedition. If you let the ideas go beyond that, and start comparing apples to oranges, you start seeing instead a system's idea of what's important, and by extension that of the society built in that system

Depends what you mean by "believe in". Could it work? Sure, why not. Do we live in one? Hell fuck no.

No.

Currently: "meritocracy" has nothing to do with "merit" and more to do with eugenics, it's just a word to make white-supremacist-patriarchal-cis-heteronormative-abled-supremacist bigotry sound less terrible than it is.

In general: because hierarchy is bad for society, since someone always ends up at the artificial "bottom" and treated badly or at the very least as less worthy or deserving (of life, dignity, freedom, access, and so on). The only reason anyone would want/believe in a "meritocracy" is because it makes them feel superior to others.

No one single "-ocracy" applied exclusively can result in a well functioning society.

IMHO, you need bits from multiple different approaches blended together to get closer to a society that works well for the majority of people.

The issue will always be reality. In theory, meritocracy and even geniocracy sounds promosing but so does our current system.

The reality is that incompetent or malicious people will always find ways to corrupt the idea.

At this point, I‘m pretty sure the only way to go forward is to think in new ways. Maybe general AI will work, or anarchy (more like anarcho communist probably).

We tried and broke everything:

• representative democracy - politicians lie to get into office and do their thing after
• autocracy - the person in charge freaks out and becomes a lifetime ruler
• communism - people starve while the politicians become rich
• monarchy - the bloodline will produce some idiot who breaks stuff - also no reason to be this rich
• multiparty system - will get little done and devolves into populism as well
• two party system - devolves into hating the other party

The real problem imo is that a few people just cant make decisions for the masses over an extended time. Its too much power and responsibility.

I‘m pretty sure a more direct democracy represents this day and age more since the majority sees how our world goes to shit.

Why not? The people most qualified should have the positions. The amount of qualified people and said positions probably don't always match and people may not want the jobs they qualify for though, But I think it's an ideal to strive for.

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.

Peeps proposing lots of good reasons against, but I'll just say: is a system where a reality show host can threaten our democracy really better?

The problem is the powerful make the rules, but don't abide by them. What starts off as a meritocracy quickly turns into this growing chasm between the haves and the have-nots. Like we have now.

I don't think this would ever be achievable. It also sounds like a broader form of technocracy (to my very much unqualified brain)

No.
“American Dream,” was built on belief where workplaces are meritocratic environments where workers, regardless of their background, can, on merit and abilities overcome any deprived situation they may find themselves in and rise above.

Just like communism when the Wall fell, I think it's safe to say this ideology, when tried and tested, has been proven a total and complete failure.

I'm very wary of the term because it could only be measured correctly if everyone started from the same conditions. People with more resources have it easier to go up.

Meritocracy is a dogwhistle white supremacists created to justify their position of power over people of color.

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.

Nobody is able to speak for other people. This just doesnt work.

Its just laziness if people prefer to have others speak for themselves.

Anarchy is the only system where nobody can hide because "it was not their decision" and where nobody has the right to "decide for other people".

I mean, are you good at gifts? If you dont know what a person wants to get as gifts, how do you want to know exactly what decisions they would make?

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.

1. Who appraises the merit of people? Who defines, maintains and updates the standards/methods used for the appraisal?
2. Is there a system for continuous quality check? It'd be needed to maintain the system as a meritocracy.
3. How is the quality check system preserved in the system?
4. 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