My first thought on the subject, as someone writing a history book on part of China's borderlands was the (still-current) ancient Confucian government-meritocracy's simple anti-entrenchment practice of forcibly posting leaders to areas in which they were neither native nor had family, and shifting them periodically. To this day, it's how China continues to operate. Totally effective? No. But pretty good.
How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself
41–50 of 106 posts
Re: How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself
#42Every elite in history has called itself a "meritocracy". Who defines "merit"? The elite. They will always look out for themselves in doing so. If anything, the "dumb", brutal aristocracy of medieval Europe had more of a claim of innate superiority ("merit") than the current elite. Because of superior nutrition and better working conditions, they were half a foot taller, probably 20 IQ points smarter, and overall mor…
"What we actually have in the US is some degree of social mobility within the middle class." The article seems to contradict that: "Using one-generation measures of social mobility—how much a father’s relative income influences that of his adult son—America does half as well as Nordic countries, and about the same as Britain and Italy, Europe’s least-mobile places."
Michael is saying people within the US middle class can do better or worse than their parents, but children are unlikely to rise or fall to a completely different class. This is orthogonal to any comparison with Sweden.
Re: How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. Except for the ultra-wealthy 0.0001%ers, it is as close to a true meritocracy it has ever been because the ones with merit rise to the top. A good surgeon can make 3-4x a poor surgeon. A good programmer can make 2-3x a poor programmer. If you are a fantastic programmer and you make $50k/yr in US, it means either (1) you don't care about money (2) you don't know how to negotiate. There is no way a fantasti…
it is as close to a true meritocracy it has ever been because the ones with merit rise to the top. How? Please explain what magical elevator makes this happen, because VC-istan seems to be a combination of connections and luck, large organizations tend to be clueless and political, and academia has been dying for at least a generation and a half. What I've seen may be limited and atypical, but I haven't seen anything…
If working at a big company gives a low level employee an upper middle class lifestyle, who needs advancement? That is extremely advanced (95%) compared to the developed world as a whole.
Re: How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself
#44Every elite in history has called itself a "meritocracy". Who defines "merit"? The elite. They will always look out for themselves in doing so. If anything, the "dumb", brutal aristocracy of medieval Europe had more of a claim of innate superiority ("merit") than the current elite. Because of superior nutrition and better working conditions, they were half a foot taller, probably 20 IQ points smarter, and overall mor…
Whether or not the term "meritocracy" is thrown around as propaganda is a separate issue from whether or not we should want to live in a meritocracy, which is what the article was about. In fact, most people don't want to live a pure meritocracy, as that would for example preclude the freedom to give gifts to others (as gifts are by definition unearned). I think one property that our economy ought have as we head int…
And in a world without work, what is "fair"? It will almost certainly go to those who own the machines.
Re: How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, the article brushes aside the idea of wealth redistribution, but the simple truth is that, all else being equal, the more money you have, the easier it is to make more of it. It's like a marathon that gets easier as you go on. Even the wealthy acknowledge it: "The first million is the hardest." So we have (or had) a progressive system of taxation to attempt to counter the natural flow of wealth toward the wealth…
It's like a marathon that gets easier as you go on. Marathons actually get a lot harder as you go on. Miles 0-16 are no different from regular short runs, 17-20 is hard and you start to flag, 21-24 is brutally difficult, and 24-26.2 is easier for psychological reasons.
Parent didn't say different.
Re: How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself
#46This, yet again, reinforces my view that funding schools through property taxes is a perverse and ultimately damaging idea. I understand the ideals behind it (schools are funded locally, playing into the strange american fixation with avoiding distributing tax revenues). Affirmative action is mentioned as outdated, but perhaps it is a sign that american society still feels guilty over the fact that not sixty years ag…
Definitely! This was the most line of reasoning in the article with the most impact. Property taxes are often progressive, disproportionally affecting the relatively wealthy. That's good. But when the benefits are collected and spent too locally, it means areas with higher property values also get better services. It takes away the progressive quality of property taxes. Continue this to an extreme: property taxes tha…
What definition of progressive are you using? They aren't super linear relative to income.
Re: How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself
#47This is really strange in my opinion. We should make it harder for rich children to get a good eduction and easier for poor children? Really? Why not make it harder for bright students to get good grades and easy for dumb students to get good grades? That would lead to greater "equality" too.
None of the proposals were about that. They propose relying more on intelligence tests instead of the current SAT that can be gamed with money. Also, having varying college fees based on whether you are rich or poor also makes sense.
Whichever rule set you choose, you're always going to disenfranchise someone. What about people with a rich parent who doesn't invest in their education? Under your system, education would be unavailable to them because they would be a poor person being charged as a rich one.
Re: How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself
#48As long as money and power give a leg up to the dumber children of smart people, it's not really a meritocracy. Exhibit A: George W. Bush
Was HW notably smarter? W wasn't an academic, but that is diffferent from dumb.
Re: How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
>...it is as close to a true meritocracy it has ever been because the ones with merit rise to the top. And then; >Nobody's saying children of farmers or auto-mechanics are any less able. They just don't get the best training. So it's a meritocracy but the training isn't available to all? Doesn't sound like a meritocracy to me.
I think the article did a poor job of representing the recent efforts by elite universities to open up access to the children of farmers and auto-mechanics. http://npc.fas.harvard.edu/ There's still more to be done, sure, but it's important to mention that this isn't as bad as it was even 10 years ago.
[deleted]
Re: How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself
#50"Outdated affirmative-action programmes should give way to schemes to help students based on the poverty of the applicant rather than the colour of his skin." Tell that to Harvard and look at Caltech's Asian student enrollment numbers: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/339778/racial-quotas-... Race should be left out of the qualifications for getting into university, but be prepared for those universities' Asian…
If this distribution were considered problematic, controlling for family immigration history could correct it -- a sort of perfect anti-aristocracy.