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Comment by gruntmaster9000 | Hacker News Reader

Missing the point. Meritocracy is not something to aspire to. In practice it masks and reinforces power structures, increasing inequality:

> The main finding is consistent across the three studies: when an organization is explicitly presented as meritocratic, individuals in managerial positions favor a male employee over an equally qualified female employee by awarding him a larger monetary reward.

From: http://asq.sagepub.com/content/55/4/543.short

Which was recognized by Chris Wanstrath when they removed it:

> @defunkt: We thought ‘meritocracy’ was a neat way to think of open source but now see the problems with it. Words matter. We’re getting a new rug.

https://twitter.com/defunkt/status/426104782894284800

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The problem wasn't the meritocracy it was the failing to live up to it. Meritocracy is absolutely something we should aspire to. In these examples the men who were paying other men more were simply not being meritocratic - if they were, then they would have hired/given raises to just as many equally qualified women as they did men.

That calling something a meritocracy when it isn't may have a paradoxical effect may be true. But I'm not sure it warrants getting rid of meritocracy as the guiding principle of an organization. We should just be doing a better job of being meritocratic.

"The problem with marxism is the failing to live up to it."

This is how you sound.

That's not actually an unreasonable line of thinking.

Sure it is. If a theory keeps failing in the real world, it's time to modify or discard the theory.

Either that, or modify the implementation

There's been a lot of failed Marxist societies, but some implementations, the Kibbutz for example, has been relatively successful. One could also argue that HN and startup culture is an example of workers seizing the means of production.

Have you actually read the linked article by the man who invented the term? It's not about meritocracy done badly, it's about it being a destabilizing force when done well.

Yes, and I think that he's mistaken.

The meritocrats - the 'beneficiaries of nepotism' in the article - aren't actually where they are (wholly) because of merit. It's because they were born into a social structure where they were already beneficiaries of wealth and privilege, and were able to accrue various 'merit badges' because of this wealth and privilege. But this isn't actually meritocracy.

What I'm saying is that the system that the author claims to be meritocratic actually isn't - if it were, starting with our early childhood education system, it would be promoting people based on talent and aptitude and not keeping them down because they were born into the wrong class.

And this is what I'm saying actually constitutes meritocracy. Do I think we should be advancing people simply because they are poor? I do not. Similarly I do not think we should be advancing people simply because they are already rich. I think we should be giving those who have been historically denied these opportunities the same opportunities to advance as we do to everyone else, elevating them rather than diminishing others. That to me would represent an actual 'meritocracy', not the false version that the coiner of the term is criticizing.

You do realise the author coined the term 'meritocracy' in the first place and therefore gets to decide what it constitutes? I think you have the wrong end of the stick in any case as he contrasts it with class and nepotism and finds it an even worse form of government. I suspect his definition isn't far off yours or mine: "merit is equated with intelligence-plus-effort, its possessors are identified at an early age and selected for appropriate intensive education, and there is an obsession with quantification, test-scoring, and qualifications." That's precisely why his critique of the arrogance and complacency this elitism leads to is interesting and not so easily dismissed. He thinks that a system where "every selection of one is a rejection of many" is overall a net loss.

I did misread the nepotism part - but he is mistaken about the pitfalls of a meritocratic society. While I do agree with his idea that the values of standardized, mass education that functions like a sieve are too narrow - and that being branded a failure too early can leave one unemployed for life. But on the whole that is becoming rarer, not more common. We - as well as Britain - have a system of public and private education that lasts until an individual is aged 18 - 22 years. We at least to some degree invest in our youths and give them many chances to succeed. And yes, it is far from perfect - but it is also still far from a true meritocracy, which functioning perfectly would find and cultivate talents from all individuals and allocate them to a task suited for them, and would give every student similar opportunities to discover and cultivate their own talents.

I just don't see what a better alternative to this perfect meritocracy would be. I don't see any alternative proposed. I don't see a better way to allocate labor. You choose people for positions that are well suited to those positions. How else would we have it? How else would we build/accomplish/organize anything?

A selection of one is a rejection of many. Likewise, choosing to fulfill a single duty means choosing not to perform all other duties. Should we do nothing? Should we hire no one? In the end I think this critique of meritocracy collapses to Marxism or some form of communitarianism - a nice idea in principle, but a failure in practice. To even remotely be able to accomplish the same kind of technological and societal progress that a true meritocracy is capable of you need to make decisions about who is and who isn't suited to particular functions.

So this seems like less a criticism of meritocracy than a criticism of the economic inequality that necessarily emerges in a society where individuals are different from each other.

Also, I somewhat disagree with the idea that a coiner of a term gets to decide its meaning in perpetuity. Language changes and terms get repurposed and given new connotations

(My other reply is dead, apparently?)

The point is we can’t be truly meritocratic. It’s a utopic ideal that doesn’t hold up in the real world. Those who are deciding what merit is are the ones who already have power. Also, there are many barriers to entry before supposed meritocratic judging can even take place. The goal isn’t to completely abandon the idea of judging people based on their accomplishments, but to recognize that the supposed ideal of meritocracy is a harmful fantasy, and to think more critically and about how we evaluate people.

Selenda Deckelmann’s on meritocracy in the Postgres community:

“[…] in a truly meritocratic organization, privilege wouldn’t matter. But the truth is, not everyone can join the Postgres project. […] So, ending the pursuit of a mythical meritocracy doesn’t mean that we start accepting code which doesn’t meet high standards, or that all of the sudden we’re going to include more code from people in the bottom 1% of the world in terms of salary. It means that we take a look at different aspects of our project and see what is within our means to open up and make accessible to people who aren’t exactly like us.” — http://www.chesnok.com/daily/2011/03/30/where-meritocracy-fa...

Everything else here is very much worth reading: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Meritocracy

How do you know that there were as many qualified female candidates for the job? How do you know that the women that you think were underpaid were producing the same quality of work as the men in similar roles? You don't. You assume it because it fits your worldview.

I'm choosing to believe the study, the abstract of which says:

"The main finding is consistent across the three studies: when an organization is explicitly presented as meritocratic, individuals in managerial positions favor a male employee over an equally qualified female employee by awarding him a larger monetary reward."

The fact of the matter is I don't, which is more, not less, of a reason to be skeptical that the concept of meritocracy is bad because it causes a paradoxical outcome.

I appreciate your well thought out reply.

I honestly haven't read the study, but I'm skeptical about how its authors reached their conclusion. How are they determining that the male and female job candidates are equally qualified? Are statisticians experts on hiring software engineers or sys admins? Were they directly involved in the hiring process of a group of tech workers? Do they have access to said workers skill assessments?

I think anyone could pick a bunch of tech companies which describe themselves as meritocracies and determine that they hire men more frequently than they do women. I think you would find that to be the norm in any tech company, regardless of how they describe themselves. There are more men in tech. Duh.

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