Meritocracy Is a Myth

https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/review-meritocracy-is-myth-2021-06-04/

by amin • 5 years ago

65 72 5 years ago

LatteLazy2• 5 years ago

Everyone claims they like meritocracy. Then they realise Merit is smarts, hardwork and luck. And they don't have all those. So why would they actually want a meritocracy anymore than a non-king wants a monarchy?

julienreszka• 5 years ago

Aesthetics, mortality, justice, ethics. There are many reasons.

LatteLazy2• 5 years ago

For 1% of people those might matter more than self interest. But good luck building a majority on them to support meritocracy.

smt883• 5 years ago

By definition, merit is not luck.

That's the crux of the issue: luck is far more important than intelligence or hard work, and many people become fantastically successful with only luck (often by being born into a wealthy family).

kiba7• 5 years ago

Luck determines what genes you have and weather or not your parents care about education. It's an inseparable part of life.

faeriechangling2• 5 years ago

I would argue merit is luck. Intelligence is mostly luck. Taller basketball players have more merit and height is luck based.

How is it coherent that generational wealth in an invalid in determining merit because it's luck based but intelligence is valid in determining merit despite being luck based? If you have a determinist outlook luck and merit are inseparable.

kiba7• 5 years ago

Meritocracy isn't egalitarianism. The whole point is to promote the best and the brightest, thus it will always promote inequality. Then the best educated will receive the best resources money can buy. That race always starts before you're even born.

prepend3• 5 years ago

How is this breaking news? I though Reuters was one of the last sort of boring “just news” orgs.

thefounder• 5 years ago

It's actualy breaking "views" not "news" but yeah I read reuters for the "boring" news so let's hope they won't push too many "views"(opinions) and stick to the news.

jdgoesmarching• 5 years ago

Even if it were real, the bigger problem is assuming anyone knows how to accurately evaluate merit. I’ll point you to any number of books on human biases, but I particularly like The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis.

The tech version of this is extremely frustrating, because intelligent people are very good at letting their brains blind their biases and insulate their egos.

TrackerFF• 5 years ago

I remember reading about David Shaw (of D.E Shaw), and how he annually donated $1MM to each HYPS school, over a period of six years - and then some to a couple of other schools. That's like at least $24MM just to get your kids to the best schools - these are the kids you're competing against, though probably outliers in above example.

The elite school -> elite (or important) jobs pipeline is something you see in every country, and that's how it's been forever, but I think things are getting a bit better. My only concern would be that we're not getting enough "class" diversity.

adamnemecek• 5 years ago

I do t think it’s as prevalent in Europe.

ttfkam3• 5 years ago

Luck (and nepotism) play far too great a role in success for meritocracy to exist.

https://youtu.be/3LopI4YeC4I

Then of course there's the whole "the guy who first coined term considered it a joke." Too many people missed the satire and took it way too seriously.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy

kiba7• 5 years ago

Luck always play a role, especially genes, and so are parents' nurture. It's always an unequal playing field.

ThrowawayR22• 5 years ago

"Then of course there's the whole "the guy who first coined term considered it a joke."

It's worth noting that the Wikipedia page itself contains the following quote from the author:

"It is good sense to appoint individual people to jobs on their merit. It is the opposite when those who are judged to have merit of a particular kind harden into a new social class without room in it for others."

In other words, the guy who first coined the term says meritocracy works. (Those who have read the book would know that it resulted in tremendous cultural and scientific achievements within its fictional world.) What the author is saying that a meritocratic system needs to be mindful of the hubris and arrogance of those given power just because they happened to be gifted with merit through an accident of birth and circumstance and to also show kindness and consideration to those less endowed with merit, lest they tear society apart.

jl27183• 5 years ago

Murray Gell-Mann effect applies here.

ttfkam3• 5 years ago

He meant this new word as a warning: Modern societies would learn how to measure intelligence in children so exactly that they would be stratified in schools and jobs according to their natural ability. In Young’s satirical fantasy, this new form of inequality would be so rigid and oppressive that it would end in violent rebellion.

ttfkam3• 5 years ago

Any notion that we live in anything remotely resembling a meritocracy should already be thoroughly debunked if for no other reason than the results of the 2016 elections.

strken2• 5 years ago

I don't think meritocracy is a myth. The myth is the belief that the current world is perfectly meritocratic.

It's not meaningful to say an abstract ideal is a myth when it's not fully realised, because meritocracy still exists as a relative measurement between different times and places. It still means something to say "our workplace should be more meritocratic." It would also be meaningful to say "our country should be freer," even if absolute freedom doesn't exist.

kiba7• 5 years ago

I don't think meritocracy is a myth. The myth is the belief that the current world is perfectly meritocratic.

I still doubt it is something that we want in our society, because meritocracy is about promotion of ability above all other consideration, which exactly favored anyone with resources, and spending resources on the most capable members of society.

strken2• 5 years ago

Depends what you mean by meritocracy.

I'm okay with spending resources in an inefficient way if it helps the poor. I'm less okay with bringing back hereditary aristocracy. I'm very much not okay with Harrison Bergeron.

prepend3• 5 years ago

because meritocracy is about promotion of ability above all other consideration

It depends on the position. I do want this when it comes to surgeons as I’m concerned with outcome not with fairness to all the surgeons who weren’t born with a silver spoon.

Or when I’m hiring a programmer. I want the best programmer and don’t want to even out all the candidates based when some are worse but have good reasons why.

I also think it’s a good ideal once everyone is in the door and are competing for bonuses or whatnot. If I have a sales organization, I want to incentivize high sales achieved within an ethical, sustainable manner. If one person makes $10 in sales and one makes $5, the person with higher sales gets the bonus. I don’t want to give the bonus to the $5 person because it was harder for them to earn that $5. It’s unclear to know what’s truly fair, but clear to know who sells more.

This is an ideal and not perfect. But if not striving for merit and quality, what’s the goal? The goal isn’t that everyone gets the same. The goal is that the organization excels.

wlpu• 5 years ago

While there is a want or whim, those with ability, real or apparent, will always be highly sought after.

I doubt it's possible to solve without removing humans from the equation.

That said, I would gladly be convinced otherwise.

mytailorisrich2• 5 years ago

Meritocracy means to get jobs and positions based on your merits (i.e. objective skills and criteria), not birth or connections. Of course, luck will always be part of it but that's unavoidable.

This has been pushed by the Enlightenment and even before because that's the fairest and most just. For example, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of 1789:

"All the citizens, being equal in its (the law) eyes, are equally admissible to all public dignities, places, and employments, according to their capacity and without distinction other than that of their virtues and of their talents." (Article 6)

That's what meritocracy means. In the same way as in a fair competition you want the best player(s) to win, not those who know or pay the referee. It does not mean leaving the poorer and less able fend for themselves on the thinking that perhaps it's their fault if they poor.

perl4ever2• 5 years ago

I think jobs generally need to be done by people who are above some minimum threshold of competence. Above that threshold, there's no need to hire based on ability and other criteria can be used.

I feel like I've read somewhere that free markets should, in theory, enforce exactly this constraint - that it should be more profitable to not hire people who have greater skills or talent than the minimum.

doggodaddo783• 5 years ago

It's sorta meritocratic. The world is imperfect but the US is fairly free for individuals as long as they don't step on powerful-people's toes. There are no ideal utopias, nor can there be. Wishing and whining that it doesn't exist is like complaining about a lack of unicorns.

rurban• 5 years ago

Nope, the US is not free at all.

There is no inheritance tax. This tax would provide equal opportunities for students to start afresh in a meritocratic society. Instead they are getting a huge headstart.

Getting rich is mostly driven by inheritance, class, luck and sociopathy, not by individual people on the basis of talent, effort and achievement.

The US has extremely expensive schools.

The US favors private contracts over civil rights, which is the base definition of fascism. Your worker is your slave because he signed this contract out of his free will.

The only advantage is the lack of middle management. But calling that freedom is hysterical.

armchairhacker2• 5 years ago

Idk how many others share this opinion, but I consider even intelligence to be luck. So if you're giving the more intelligent people better jobs / living conditions it's still unfair.

But moreover, intelligence is too broad to rank. There's STEAM intelligence, which is what most people consider "intelligence". But there's also emotional intelligence, "quick-thinking" intelligence, "street smarts", etc. and even STEAM is kind of broad. So when you say meritocracy, do you mean that someone who's very analytical, but has no empathy or emotional understanding whatsoever, should rule the world?

I think an ideal society would be more in line with John Rawls' philosophy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice).

mc32• 5 years ago

The "A" in STEM probably does not belong there and in any case has the least amount of "meritocracy" of anything since it's all about gatekeepers, I mean curators and trendsetters.

strikelaserclaw2• 5 years ago

I think most rational people can agree that intelligence is mostly luck. There are even studies that say that the amount of grit and conscientiousness are something you are born with (Prime example is people with ADHD who seems to lack these no matter how hard they try, so it is reasonable to believe that you need some measure of brain physiology and not just beliefs and behaviors).

But it does not make for a good society if you let unintelligent/not hard working people become the top of society all in the name of egalitarian ideals. I think the best thing is to encourage people to try their best with their given abilities, and to have a culture in society where those who reach the top of society have some measure of responsibility to those who did not inherit any gifts.

armchairhacker2• 5 years ago

Yeah I still think that people who are smartest in some way should control society, like how people who have talent for a particular job should be assigned that job. Just that people who are less smart shouldn't suffer worse QOL.

eevilspock2• 5 years ago

So imagine we are shipwrecked on an island, and circumstances are such that muscle, hunting skills and fishing/swimming/skin diving ability is more important for survival of the group than the kind of brain that software developers have. So all of a sudden these physical folk have the leverage (aka "merit") to demand a greater share of the resources and power, and pretty soon the software developers are forced to cook, clean and do chores for them.

Thus "merit" is very circumstantial. Why does one group "deserve" to be wealthy in one circumstance, and another in a different circumstance?

Everyone in our deeply capitalist culture uses the words "merit" and "deserve" in a deeply moral sense to describe something that isn't moral at all. As Inigo Montoya once said, "You keep using that word..."

schwartzworld• 5 years ago

Anybody who has worked crappy jobs knows that intelligence and income aren't related. Some of the smartest people I've ever met earned their living bussing tables or preparing salads. It's not an exaggeration to say that your busboy could have a masters degree.

jl27183• 5 years ago

I love the implicit equivalence of education and intelligence in that statement. So ironic. The statement of the problem self-explains the source of the problem.

imtringued6• 5 years ago

Idk how many others share this opinion, but I consider even intelligence to be luck. So if you're giving the more intelligent people better jobs / living conditions it's still unfair.

Why is it unfair? If the capable people can pull themselves ahead they can pull the rest along with them. The opposite is impossible. Of course, I am assuming a functioning economic system with reasonable inflation and interest rates. We don't have that luxury.

agentofoblivion• 5 years ago

Baaaaaaarrrrrffff. What a horrible take. Rich people use their wealth to improve the opportunities of their offspring? How tragic. I suppose we’re all the victims of Jeff Bezos because his unfair, luck-derived, incredible intellect invented Amazon before we got around to it. If only we had more people from the bottom 60% going to Harvard (even though we know Ivy League schools predict little about performance) then some other person would have invented Amazon, and then we would be reading a similarly shit article where they use that person as evidence of whatever the point actually is here.

Tl;dr being poor isn’t as good as rich and luck matters more than zero.

faeriechangling2• 5 years ago

The article fails to prove its central point because it fails to demonstrate that merit is non-heritable through for instance, genetics.

I'm not exactly sure what the argument against meritocracy actually was. Are these highly educated students NOT better workers? Are they better workers but they only got to be that way through the unfair favoritism of parents towards their own children and an insufficient social support network? Usually when I see complaints about meritocracy the solution is to put your fingers on the scale of adult employment because of the non-meritocratic nature of it but if the argument is the latter than one can raise many objections to this idea. If the idea is the former the argument has not been sufficiently made.

Is it being argued that nuture can't raise intelligence? That's questionable as well. Is meritocracy and egalitarianism supposed to be the same thing for reasons? I really don't know the arguments are clear as mud. I don't feel like me reading this article happened through any meritocratic process.

proc02• 5 years ago

Yet as a top-notch education becomes the essential requirement for the best job, the rich can buy educational privileges for their children

This is not meritocracy. Every argument made is just how much meritocracy has died in the U.S. not how meritocracy does not work. If it worked properly, the rich wouldn't have a leg up just because they have money, because in theory there wouldn't be elite schools to begin with. Schools themselves would be rewarded based on merit, instead of having these generational gatekeeping mechanisms that literally produce the ruling class in America. This is "the swamp" in politics, it's a bunch of elite people coming from elite schools, which might have some education, but are not necessarily the best for those jobs, just the ones with the best access... so not meritocracy.

kiba7• 5 years ago

Meritocracy is about selecting and awarding the best. This will always create an elite.

The best educated will be the rich and self amplify themselves by giving them the resources needed to succeed. They earned their merit by being better than anyone else.

The poor will always be disadvantaged, whether that's broken homes or lack of access to resources.

Meritocracy is a toxic idea if you don't understand the tradeoff. It will always exacerbates inequality.

proc02• 5 years ago

First, this is basically admitting you are not good enough, and they are inherently better. Already a self-defeatist attitude that can become a self-fulflilling prophecy. And second, you even mention it:

self amplify themselves by giving them the resources needed to succeed

That's corrupt meritocracy. Also are you telling me you don't select restaurants, mechanics, food products, opinions of others, etc., etc., based on whether they're better than others or not? Are you saying you just go around never thinking of who does it better than others to then benefit from that? Think about how you reward peopel on a daily basis, and how that ends up contributing to meritocracy.

fungiblecog2• 5 years ago

The solution is not for elite schools to take in more students from deprived backgrounds. The solution is to make state schools good enough to compete with the elite schools.

Teaching at state schools (I’m from the UK) is utterly crap and 30 years of continuous reform has merely ensured that it keeps getting worse even as grade inflation is encouraged to make it seem like it’s getting better.

actually_a_dog• 5 years ago

Since you raised the issue, I'll just ask how you'd propose to accomplish this. Certainly it's simpler to admit people to an already good school who wouldn't have been admitted otherwise (and, not necessarily because they're not qualified -- the number of students at any elite school is vastly outstripped by the number of applicants).

I would say the potential payoff of improving "lesser" schools is far greater than simply letting different people into elite schools. That just seems obvious by the fact that there are way more mediocre state schools and other C and D list schools out there than there are Stanfords and Caltechs. What I doubt is that it's even possible in a practical sense to raise the bar on the non-site schools to an extent that would offset the overall effect of elite schools in aggregate on people who attend them. In other words, I suspect that opening up elite schools is simply the more practical option, however I am not an education policy wonk, so I am totally willing to be convinced otherwise.

fungiblecog2• 5 years ago

The problem with “merit” is that it’s entirely subjective. Some would argue that Boris Johnson is prime minister based on merit: he went to university, worked as a journalist, got elected Mayor of London and the became PM. Others (myself included) would say that he has achieved nothing on merit but has used his privileged background, influential friends and lied his way to the top.

doggodaddo783• 5 years ago

It's who you know, not what you know.

Being rich and well-connected creates a self-amplifying, "virtuous" circle much like a population differential equation where the rate of increase is proportional to the amount present.

I do believe that someone who out-competes and out-achieves the "lazy rich students who buy their homework" have the grit to overtake anyone who isn't focused, experienced, and used to working hard. It's easier if you're well-connected except it's not worth giving-up because unfairness, connectedness, and advantages exist.

Victimology isn't productive for achievement, it's an excuse.

ergot_vacation• 5 years ago

This article is baffling. "The rich are unfairly rich-" it says "Because their parents were rich and bought them good schooling no one else can afford! But schooling hasn't been able to lift those who aren't already rich out of poverty very well! But if we just fix education the right way, surely THIS time it will work, and everyone can be rich(er)!"

People love to believe comfortable myths. For a certain group of people, their comfortable myth is that wealth inequality can be solved by education. It cannot. People become wealthy because of luck. Who your parents are is luck. Where you were born is luck. Your intelligence and physical and mental health are luck. It's all luck. The best schooling in the world can't move this needle much, and its power grows ever weaker as technology and automation eat more and more of the economy.

"Growth" can't save us either. We cannot escape by giving the economy more gas, because the faster the economy goes, the more things get automated, the more jobs vanish, and more wealth gets concentrated. We are rapidly approaching a point where a tiny fraction of the population controls almost all economic activity, and in that future, the only way to fix wealth inequality is to tax that group and spread the money around. Most of that group do not want this to happen of course, and they get to make the decisions. But sooner or later, this will become an untenable position.

TheAdamAndChe• 5 years ago

The trouble here is that people don't become wealthy just because of luck. It plays a part, sure, but people have to play the game and know how it works in order to have even a chance of winning. The trouble is that many people don't even try because they don't know how to.

Becoming wealthy is all about making more money than you spend and investing the rest. Education absolutely helps make more money, especially if you are educated in an in-demand field. Then you have to develop the discipline to spend less than you earn and to know(learn about) how to use an IRA and save from an early age.

My personal finance class in high school was vital for this reason. While not everyone internalized its teachings, those who did have had significantly less stressful lives after they got an emergency fund saved up.

imtringued6• 5 years ago

Becoming wealthy is all about making more money than you spend and investing the rest.

For obvious reasons, if you do not invest your money yourself, that money is being lent out by your bank who invests it on your behalf and that bank then lends it to companies who invest it on the bank's behalf.

When companies stop being borrowers and interest rates drop there is no demand for your savings and you shouldn't let your money sit in a bank account.

imtringued6• 5 years ago

"Growth" can't save us either. We cannot escape by giving the economy more gas, because the faster the economy goes, the more things get automated, the more jobs vanish, and more wealth gets concentrated.

I disagree because there is no demand for growth and productivity improvements if you can concentrate your wealth without doing anything.

We are rapidly approaching a point where a tiny fraction of the population controls almost all economic activity, and in that future, the only way to fix wealth inequality is to tax that group and spread the money around.

That's wrong, there are four options.

The government as borrower of last resort who then subsequently uses the money on improving its infrastructure. This is compatible with fighting climate change.

Negative interest rates for the first $100k you borrow from your bank. (private/business loans only, no mortgages)

The weakening of cash to achieve negative interest rates on deposits (low cash withdrawal rates would be a start e.g. $3000 per month and $1500 max cash deposits per month). People with low savings can take their money out as cash but people with high savings will be screwed and forced to invest.

The central bank as equalizer of last resort, let them send helicopter money until the inflation target has been reached. The helicopter money can be tied to a job guarantee that pays minimum wage. Given enough inflation people will naturally stop working at minimum wage.

Yes, all wealth inequality problems stem from the fact that the Fed isn't powerful enough.

xupybd• 5 years ago

You've missed something else, equity is impossible. No matter how good life gets someone is always worse off in some way. If you could level everyone economically you'd still be uneven. Some are athletically gifted, some are beautiful, some are charismatic and others have none of these things.

When I was a kid I complained that my sister was getting a better deal than I was. My dad looked me in they eye and said "Life is not fair"

inglor_cz• 5 years ago

Causality in complex human societies is nowhere near as straightforward as you claim. Luck is just one of many factors in our lives. Do people owe a lot to luck?

Yes, for example, neither of us two were born in the middle of a raging civil war in central Africa and died at the age of 3 of preventable diseases caused by unsafe drinking water. That is luck, definitely.

But plenty of people waste their lucky moments and gain nothing from them. That does not concern wealth alone; people mess up great relationships for trivial reasons, behave recklessly when they should not, commit stupid crimes just for the lulz etc.

As far as comfortable myths go, the concept that luck is the main factor (or even the only factor) in someone's fate is a golden example. Luck is perfectly beyond your control, so if you look at your life and conclude that it sucks, you can rest comfortably in knowledge that it is in no sense your own fault, but a product of impersonal force de majeure that just selected you to be doomed.

I'd rather be cursed by Voldemort than adapt this mindset. It is very self-destructive.

perl4ever2• 5 years ago

Luck is just one of many factors in our lives

It appears that the other factors you are thinking of are intelligence and temperament. But other people do argue that these are also luck. People do not choose their personality, and while they may change due to external events, that doesn't mean they deserve credit or blame regardless.

You can disagree, but maybe believing in free will is just the sort of person you are and nothing that physically exists chooses to act on itself.

Mark Twain wrote about this in the essay "What Is Man", although I don't take it entirely at face value. I suspect that he felt some (maybe subconscious) need to excuse himself for believing in the injustice of slavery but not taking part in the Civil War.

Gravyness• 5 years ago

But sooner or later, this will become an untenable position.

Why can't the "decision makers" make the decision to disregard everyone who isn't a decision maker?

xondono• 5 years ago

To me the most interesting part of this debate is that the majority of commenters here have pretty quickly jumped to “merit is luck because intelligence is luck”, which it’s pretty much impossible to make compatible with the concept of free will.

But I somehow doubt that all the people commenting would accept that free will is not a thing.

coldtea• 5 years ago

It's 2021. Not even boyscouts believe in meritocracy...

ttonkytonk• 5 years ago

...and even in the Iliad Achilles' bravery is attributed to the gods and in Exodus Pharaoh's heart is hardened by God.

fighterpilot• 5 years ago

This whole debate is the conflation of proximate causes and antecedent causes. If the most skilled person gets hired, is that an example of meritocracy?

According to some people's definition - those who emphasize the proximate cause of the decision - yes, this is absolutely a meritocracy.

According to others, no, it isn't, because of the genetic lottery and other antecedent causes outside of the control of the hiree.

Who is right here? The answer is that both parties are right. They don't disagree on the underlying reality. They just disagree on what aspects of that reality the word "meritocracy" should refer to.

osigurdson• 5 years ago

I wonder what empirical evidence we have which would show graduates of elite schools are better in their chosen field of study than those that graduated from non-elite schools (or even carefully studied the material on their own).

If outcomes are better at elite schools and it is not due to the students themselves then what is the elite school's secret sauce that cannot be replicated?

jl27183• 5 years ago

This author seems to have an angle they either can’t prove with facts or don’t know how to discuss with data. How much better are the super-rich test scores? Is that enough to fully explain their over-representation in the Ivies? How much does private school improve those scores? Does that fully explain their admissions advantage? What is the statistical benefit of wealth in the GaoKao? What portion of the wealth advantage in Chinese admissions is due to better scores, and how much is due to provincial quotas, or even political favors? In the US there have been several Supreme Court cases about this, and the conclusions have been that meritocracy is not a goal of federal education funding and tax relief programs.

A simple search comes up with a far more comprehensive article on exactly this topic:

“The Myth of American Meritocracy” by Ron Unz https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of...

I admit that I haven’t read to the end; it’s nearly a book. But what is interesting to me is the source and focus of the complaint, today versus a decade ago.

Is it liberal or conservative to decry the lack of meritocracy? Is it okay to skew admissions to redress privilege, while not okay to skew admissions in favor of privilege, or does the simultaneous practice of both make it okay?

Meritocracy Is a Myth

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