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How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself

economist.com

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Re: How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself

#31

Post by scottshea »

ap22213 wrote: post #23

Given the audience of this site, it's interesting that this topic has even floated toward the top. And, it's also interesting (but hardly surprising) that most of the comments are blindly for meritocracy. Yeah - meritocracy sounds great in principle. And, we can agree that it's leagues better than aristocracy. But, over generational scales, aristocracy and meritocracy are very closely aligned. Meritocracy begins firs…

To expand on your comments I think it is safe to say that the elite, whether aristocracy or meritocracy, are adept at keeping the wealth, influence and power for themselves and their friends. Some of it is innate in that they will pass on resources to their children out of a desire to see them succeed. Some of it is cronyism as they want to do good things for their friends.

Re: How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself

#32

Post by api »

michaelochurch wrote: post #16

Every 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…

Also: merit is not one-dimensional. Which merit is being measured? Merit at what?

I've noted for a while that a significant fraction of those successful in business, especially in certain sectors, are basically glorified street hustlers. They're very good at rapidly building social networks, smoke and mirrors, and shell games that create the illusion of value. The game they play could be called "lie, leverage, flip."

Is this the merit that we want?

I would argue that all societies are meritocracies for some value of "merit." Defining merit in any objective sense is not easy. In fact, it's probably capital-H Hard and reduces to the same effectively-infinite-dimensional search problem solved by evolution itself.

I think meritocracy is a great example of a simple idea that is incredibly appealing but wrong in a way that creates pathologies. Economics and biology are just chock full of that stuff.

Re: How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself

#33

Post by davidiach »

CJefferson wrote: post #3
davidiach wrote: post #2

This 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.

The fact that someone on a site like hacker news (which I like consider are on the more intelligent side) would make a comparison like this, deeply disturbs me. We clearly have fundamentally different world views. (edit: I don't want this to sound like davidirch shouldn't have that opinion, just that it's easy to assume people will share your opinion) I don't understand how you can be against what seems to be a compl…

1. Tutoring does not make a dumb person smart. Your IQ does not grow because you have a good teacher.

2. Complaining about people not having a fair chance in an age where everybody has access to the internet (which is pretty much all human knowledge) is just wrong.

3. You don't need college to rise to the top - that's just a myth (check out Thiel Fellowship website, they have lot's of materials on this topic).

4. The fact that you don't agree with someone doesn't mean they lack intelligence.

Re: How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself

#34

Post by brianchu »

Most of the arguments over our meritocracy come down to a matter of semantics. People seem to have wildly different definitions of a meritocracy. If you define (as I do) a meritocracy as a society in which power is given according to ability, then a society in which there are educational disadvantages for the poor is nonetheless still a meritocracy, albeit an educationally-unequal meritocracy. A society can be both a meritocracy and have poor social mobility. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive (though in some cases they can be).

Yes, it is true that today's society is by no means a pure meritocracy. Connections matter. That is unlikely to ever change. The problem of "who you know matters" is a problem of information - people would rather hire a slightly-below-competent friend than a supposedly-competent stranger because their friend is a known quantity.

Re: How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself

#35

Post by druswick »

tnuc wrote: post #25
chime wrote: post #18

Earlier 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. 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.

Re: How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself

#37

Post by betterunix »

ap22213 wrote: post #23

Given the audience of this site, it's interesting that this topic has even floated toward the top. And, it's also interesting (but hardly surprising) that most of the comments are blindly for meritocracy. Yeah - meritocracy sounds great in principle. And, we can agree that it's leagues better than aristocracy. But, over generational scales, aristocracy and meritocracy are very closely aligned. Meritocracy begins firs…

"meritocracy sounds great in principle. And, we can agree that it's leagues better than aristocracy"

Meritocracy is a form of aristocracy. The word "aristocracy" comes from the Greek words for "best" and "power," or in other words a system where those who are most fit to rule will be the leaders of society. It sounds great in principle, the only problem is the definition of "best."

Re: How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself

#38

Post by druswick »

drakeandrews wrote: post #12

This, 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 that I pay are only spent on my household. The city/county maintains my property, educates my children. There's no more progressive distribution.

Re: How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself

#39

Post by bingobangobongo »

michaelochurch wrote: post #16

Every 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 into a future of machines increasingly displacing human workers is this: If all human work in the economy stopped, wealth should converge to an approximately fair distribution, preferably within a small number of lifetimes.

Re: How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself

#40

Post by [deleted] »

chime wrote: post #18
stcredzero wrote: post #13

An "entrenched meritocracy" is a contradiction. It's not a true meritocracy. Instead, it's an aristocracy claiming to be one, which is a bit tautological, since every such class claims it deserves its privileged position. People in other times and places believed they deserved their privileges just as sincerely as you do right now. Of course, the situation is different because we're smarter than they are ;)

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…

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