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.
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.
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.
All of the proposals other than meritocracy so far gives the rich even more of a leg up over everyone else, which is why meritocracy continues to enjoy widespread support. Meritocracy focused on objective measures and unbiased assessment at least gives talented ordinary people a chance at outcompeting the rich.
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.
This only works because there are more suitable candidates than you want to hire. If you only need to fill one position but there are 10 good candidates out of 1000 applicants you want to pick the cherry.
If the position inverses and you have 10 positions to fill but only 5 candidates you are going to get all 5 even if the 5th is terrible but can do the job.
I doubt it's possible to solve without removing humans from the equation.
That said, I would gladly be convinced otherwise.
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.
It doesn't matter because the elite always have advantage. They have better access to tutors and education and can go very far.
If all that we care about is awarding the best for every position, then that's fine, but that's not entirely how we want to structure society.
That's unavoidable but can still be kept in check by investing in good public education. It's more important to make sure that the most disadvantaged have the opportunity to progress on their own merit than to hit the most advantaged.
If you don't like the elite having too big an advantage because of their wealth and background then you want more meritocracy.
There'll always be an elite. That's not a problem. The fair way, though, is for that elite to be made of people who got there based on their own merit, not birth, not connections, not background, not corruption. That's what meritocracy is.
> that's not entirely how we want to structure society.
No, that's how we want to structure society, as I mentioned in my previous comment. That's the fairest and most just way we've found and it is massively better than the alternative (birth rights, privileges, connections, etc)
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.
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.
Are you going to tax my parents away from me? They gave me 18 years of care. You'd have to tax those 18 years for things to be truly fair.
I don't believe in inheritance taxes because someone has to own all the stuff a person with low wealth enjoys. The government builds streets that are worth millions but even the poorest of society benefit from the wealth inequality of state and citizen. There are similar situations where wealth inequality benefits the poor and rich alike but things have been rigged so that these situations are rare or non existent.
I do believe in a cap on the maximum amount a single person can inherit in their life. We don't want to take wealth away, we want it to spread. Everyone is born poor. People only become wealthy during their life. Some get wealthy earlier than others but that is not the problem. It's the quantity of wealthy people that is important. If everyone could be wealthy a day after they were born that would be fantastic.