Comment by pron | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pron | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Meritocracy isn't an ideal – it's a joke, and everyone should be fighting it. (Quoting another comment of mine:)

Meritocracy is not a desirable state of affairs, because it should be obvious that "merit" is a false currency used to justify what is, rather than work toward what should be. It is the quintessential naturalistic fallacy. By definition, an is-ought fallacy such as Meritocracy can not be an ideal (if you misunderstand meritocracy to mean "everyone gets what they deserve" that cannot be an ideal either, as it would be no different from "a world ruled by God", which is an imagined state rather than an ideal).

It amazes me time and again how people can take the term seriously, which only demonstrates how dangerous it is. Such a blatant, perverted joke, a dystopia that some intelligent people mistake for a utopia. Wikipedia says this: "Although the concept has existed for centuries, the term "meritocracy" was first coined in the 1950s. It was used by British politician and sociologist, Michael Young in his 1958 satirical essay, The Rise of the Meritocracy, which pictured the United Kingdom under the rule of a government favouring intelligence and aptitude (merit) above all else... In this book the term had distinctly negative connotations as Young questioned both the legitimacy of the selection process used to become a member of this elite and the outcomes of being ruled by such a narrowly defined group."

I still can't fathom how meritocracy can be taken as anything but a negative. I mean, the first question that comes to mind (or, rather, the second after "what is merit") is, "who has merit and why, and who does not?" Once this question is asked, it is immediately apparent that any attempt to paint "meritocracy" in a positive light is ludicrous.

I don't understand you. Are you saying nobody has merit?

That somebody wrote a parody about it doesn't prove anything.

It's also not obvious that it would cement a status quo: people can still strive to have merit? And does the concept forbid helping people to acquire skills? You can perhaps say Meritocracy is not the whole story (because of the self-sustaining elites problem), but it could be part of the solution, together with the usual efforts to give everybody a chance.

Something that actively reinforces the status quo by what it is, is unable to ever be “part of the solution” by its very nature. The very idea of meritocracy reinforces the status quo, by virtue of “merit” generally being defined by the people who have the most privilege and power, and who, additionally, rarely ever recognize the merit of the contributions of people who are Not Like Them. (also, the term was coined as a parody, as a warning; it wasn't just "written about")

That criticism doesn't make sense: I don't think anybody believes that in general the people in power today are so because of their merits. So how does a call for meritocracy cement the status quo? I think people want people with actual merit in power instead of many of the current crop.

OK, the GitHub carpet perhaps made that claim, but they were truly trying to create a new kind of company. I'm pretty sure they didn't define merit to be "privilege and power" but coding skills and open source contribution.

Now you can make a very complicated case trying to reason why some people are excluded from open source and programming, but I don't really buy it. Everybody can start coding with an investment of perhaps 300$. Maybe some people are unlucky in that they never hit upon the idea. But it would be very difficult to prove that people can be actively prevented from programming (except by ways that would exclude them from everything, like making them slaves and never giving them any free time to do anything).

Also, why does the status quo always have to be bad?

> But it would be very difficult to prove that people can be actively prevented from programming

Well, kids growing up in poverty without the right role models are pretty close to being "actively prevented from programming".

> Also, why does the status quo always have to be bad?

It doesn't, but it can't be an ideal either. The status quo can be better than the past (or "relatively good"), but still very far from an ideal. If you believe people should always work to make the world better, than trying to maintain the status quo is pretty bad (unless you see some danger looming).

"Well, kids growing up in poverty without the right role models are pretty close to being "actively prevented from programming""

Not really - they can still get a computer for 300$, head to the nearest library and get started.

Yes, there are bad fates - perhaps they never learned to read and so on. It's really possible someone never gets the chance. But as I said, programming is then really the last skill that can be blamed for being unattainable, plenty of other professions that would be way more forbidding.

" If you believe people should always work to make the world better, than trying to maintain the status quo is pretty bad"

But wouldn't people be forced to try to have merit, so they would automatically work on improving the world?

Meritocracy, like all real or imagined power systems, isn't about merit, though – it's about power. Power is real, so who gets it in a meritocracy? Let's say it's people with merit. Alright then, imagine this poor black girl growing up in the projects. She sees drug abuse all around her, but she stays away from it. She grows up and tries really hard to get her kids out of poverty. While she takes two jobs and sits with her kids for hours every day to tutor them, she fails as bad influence proves too strong. Now imagine this boy growing up in Manhattan to rich parents. They send him to all the right schools and make sure he takes part in all the right extracurricular activities. He works hard and gets into Harvard, where he continues to study hard to get his Comp Sci degree. A meritocracy grants power to those with merit: which of these two people will have power?

One of the reasons meritocracy is a joke is that merit cannot be measured; only success. Those who claim to believe in meritocracy think it simply means removing power from those who've gained success without merit (say, through connections and/or inheritance). But that doesn't really change the picture much, because the biggest bias is against those who haven't had success at all, in spite of their merit.

Like I said in my previous comment, when considering meritocracy, you should ask yourself "who does not have merit and why?"

Still, you can not seriously ask of tech companies to hire the poor girl from the slum instead of the Harvard comp sci major because the girl never had a chance to learn comp sci? I don't think such a rule would be beneficial for society. If comp sci doesn't convince you, imagine you are seriously ill. Who should be your physician - somebody who studied medicine at Harvard, or somebody who never had a chance to study medicine?

As I said, I don't see why Meritocracy could not be part of the solution. I don't think it implies that society shouldn't try to give people a fair chance all along the way. It doesn't even define what kind of merits should be rewarded. Perhaps "helping people to achieve their potential" would be the merit regarded the highest.

And if you dismiss Meritocracy on those grounds you mentioned, aren't you straight back in communism territory? You probably wouldn't be allowed to pay the comp sci major more than any other unskilled worker, either. Otherwise it would be unfair, right?

> Still, you can not seriously ask of tech companies to hire the poor girl from the slum

True, but that doesn't make meritocracy an ideal. It's just how things are.

> As I said, I don't see why Meritocracy could not be part of the solution.

Again, how is meritocracy different from the status quo, then? But the reason your meritocracy is a problem more than a solution is twofold: first, it focuses effort on the wrong people (those who have success without merit) rather than those who need society's help. If your system is first let's wrestle power from those who have it without merit and only then turn our attention to the real problem, then your priorities are messed up. Second, it does all this by believing it somehow rewards merit while it really rewards privilege combined with some merit. A system not calling itself a meritocracy at least acknowledges its own unfairness.

"True, but that doesn't make meritocracy an ideal. It's just how things are."

What principle should tech companies use for hiring? And other companies, too?

Even if you say they should hire less skilled people and try to train them, that demand sounds like a tax to me. So perhaps it would be better to simply use taxes to train people, rather than burdening companies with something they are not specialized on? To start a company to cure cancer, you would then not only have to be an expert in curing cancer, but also in teaching people skills. That would raise the bar for creating successful companies significantly.

"it focuses effort on the wrong people (those who have success without merit)"

Ah, now we arrive at a crucial point: the anti-meritocracy crowd seems to think privileged people can never have merit. So if a Harvard graduate cures cancer, it counts less than if a girl from the slums does it. In fact a Harvard graduate doesn't deserve any recognition at all, he/she should probably be ashamed for curing cancer, thereby robbing the slum girl of her chance to do so.

I don't think such a value system can ever provide good results. Why not simply stick to the facts "cancer was cured, how much is that worth to me", rather than making moral judgements on the people who cured it?

Also, how can you argue against meritocracy with the argument it "focuses on people who have success without merit", when Meritocracy demands exactly the opposite of that?

> What principle should tech companies use for hiring? And other companies, too?

Whatever works for them. But companies, at least in America, are not in the business of fixing society but that of making profit. As long as they remember that's what they're doing it's OK. I just think it makes them look stupid if they consider themselves to be some sort of utopia.

> the anti-meritocracy crowd seems to think privileged people can never have merit.

No. But "merit" is the least contribution to success. Otherwise, you'd think all merit is concentrated in about a billion people living in the West. Most success is 90% luck and 10% merit. Also, calling people "anti-meritocracy" is kinda funny, as meritocracy was intended as a parody of society. It was never intended to be taken seriously. I'm not against any kind of parody. I'm certainly pro-meritocracy: I think it's funny as hell.

> Why not simply stick to the facts "cancer was cured, how much is that worth to me", rather than making moral judgements on the people who cured it?

I'm not making a moral judgement. I just don't think that people lucky enough to have opportunities should be worshipped as being more than that. But most importantly, I'm not sure why that would necessarily mean they're the best people to rule society.

> Also, how can you argue against meritocracy with the argument it "focuses on people who have success without merit", when Meritocracy demands exactly the opposite of that?

Again, meritocracy is a parody. It demands nothing other than your laughter at our society's hypocrisy. But if I imagine how people who think it was meant as anything other than a joke take it to mean, I think: okay, so how does meritocracy differ from the system we have now in the eyes of people who don't see it as a joke? I mean, that Harvard guy already has the power. The answer is that these people think that if you're well-nourished, well-educated and study hard at Harvard, then you're fundamentally more deserving than someone who's well nourished and well educated, but gets into Harvard because his parent are super-rich and make a big contribution. Meritocracy implies that the second guy has less merit than the first, while the truth is that they're both mostly lucky, only the first guy works hard in addition to being lucky.

Any system that focuses on taking power from the vanishingly small number of people more fortunate than its believers is, in my opinion, seriously flawed. I prefer systems that focus on those less fortunate than me.

I tried to look up the original parody. Apparently it describes the meritocracy as people constantly being evaluated by IQ tests. That's not really what the current idea of Meritocracy is - I'd assume it would build on actual achievements, not potential skills. So your reference to the parody is really quite useless.

The criticism that there is no objective measurement might still apply, although I'd say sometimes there is. If cancer is cured, it is cured.

"you're fundamentally more deserving than someone who's well nourished and well educated"

I'd say he is more deserving because he can cure cancer - if I am looking for somebody to give my money so that he cures my cancer.

I agree that everything is luck. But I still want the cancer gone. What solution do you propose?

It seems to me the privileged people should receive even less credit, whereas I propose credit should be given for results. You can't blame the slum person for being born in a slum, but you also can't blame the rich person for being born rich.

> but you also can't blame the rich person for being born rich.

I don't. But I don't want to idealize his luck either. If it all comes down to luck, I see little difference between giving power to those lucky enough to be born relatively rich as well as intelligent so that they can cure cancer, vs to those even luckier to be born extremely rich. If luck is your ideology, discriminating between different kinds of luck seems sheer jealousy.

Currently the world defaults on credential-ism, titles and socio-political connections which is definitely a system of class & privilege vs. directly evaluating people on their merits, which is what meritocracy focuses on.

The kid in the slum who can scrap together enough money for a cheap computer and internet connection can become a software engineer that is paid 6 figures. A college education will be something they can never approach unless the state makes it free for them. This is what we strive for.

You say power systems are about power. A meaningless tautology but at least a true statement unlike most of your comments. Are you being purposely dense?

Nobody is saying some people don't have any merit. Everyone has merit but in different amounts for different tasks - get it?

As someone who makes every effort to appear so under-educated, I'd think you of all people would not like to be judged on pure merit. On the other hand, you claimed to think that a juvenile carpet flaunting a very well known political parody as an actual ideal (and not ironically, mind you) was "cool", so I'm not sure what's real and what's a joke any more. If you were being sarcastic, please forgive me for not getting that, but issues such as this are quite serious, so I sometimes miss humor in comments.

If, like me, you thought that carpet was funny because GitHub mistook a parody for real life, then I'm sorry for the misunderstanding.

Thank you for this. I hadn't really thought about it before -- "meritocracy" is not a word I can recall ever using -- but this is an excellent argument, and truly hits the nail on the head.

There is an ideal of fairness in hiring and promotion that is to be striven for. But declaring that one's organization has attained it is the height of arrogance.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com