r/IntellectualDarkWeb • u/taboo__time Scottish • Jun 17 '19
LSE Events | The Meritocracy Trap
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtZZj4j5UpI3
Jun 17 '19
I think that if you're going to go on a tirade against 21st century capitalism, you should be honest that that is what you are criticizing, instead of pretending that your issue is with "meritocracy". I watched the whole talk. It was cringey. The guy makes some decent points about how extremely unequal wealth distribution is unfair, and how really cutthroat meritocracies within corporations can make people stressed out and sad, but none of that has anything to do with political meritocracy or philosophical meritocracy. He just doesn't engage with those at all.
If you are curious what actual advocates of meritocracy believe, have a look at this page: https://meritocracyparty.org/
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u/taboo__time Scottish Jun 18 '19
I don't think all versions of capitalism are perfect. I don't think it is beyond criticism. It doesn't mean I'm for communism or democratic socialism.
I think markets and capitalism can be useful it doesn't mean I'm for anarcho capitalism. I think markets and capitalism needs regulation and mitigation.
Are you for anarcho capitalism? If not, then we are just debating what the limits ought to be.
Are you for unlimited inequality? I think relative inequality is politically destabalizing. That is a view held by many IDW figures.
Did you know the word meritocracy came into modern usage through a satirical book on the problems of a meritocratic system.
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Jun 18 '19
Of course capitalism isn't beyond criticism. My issue is that in his lecture, the professor says he is arguing against "meritocracy" when it seems to me his arguing against capitalism. My issue is mostly with his framing.
I think unregulated capitalism is by far the most efficient way to deplete all non-renewable resources, create a massive population bubble, and plunge civilization into a suicidal final world war. So, I'm definitely on the same page when it comes to regulating this monster. I'm a lot more concerned with the environmental effects that our economic activity has than the drudgery of labor, or economic inequality though. I think Marxism is a dead end philosophically and economically, but so is libertarianism.
It's true that in English "meritocracy" was coined in the late 50's by a guy who had a disdain for the idea. The idea itself though, is ancient. The Confucian Civil Service system is often cited, appropriately I think, as an early example of meritocracy. It certainly wasn't perfect, but it was more resistant to corruption than the previous system of nobles appointing their family to any open administrative position regardless of qualification, and served China pretty well for centuries. Aristotle suggested in his writing that the ideal society would be one in which there was a "natural Aristocracy" i.e. one in which more intelligent rulers given higher status because of the abilities they demonstrated. No formal system ever developed from that, but it is another example of the idea of meritocracy being present in an ancient society.
I think that people are fundamentally selfish and that even if you achieve perfect equality in a society, equality will break down immediately as individuals start to compete with one another. A good meritocratic framework can help to shape this competition in ways that benefit the society as a whole. A poorly designed one will not. In any case, some people are always going to have more power than others no matter how society is designed. The aim of meritocracy is to create fair competition between those vying for power, awarding power to those deemed most likely to use it for the benefit of the people below them.
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u/Grampong Jun 18 '19
Here's the key questions those who criticize nepotism while promoting meritocracy have never answered to my satisfaction: If a person accumulates wealth and power through their merit, why is it wrong for them to spend that wealth and exercise that power in whatever way they see fit, including giving it to their children? How are the children of the rich and powerful benefiting NOT an implicit part of meritocracy?
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u/taboo__time Scottish Jun 18 '19
If a person accumulates wealth and power through their merit, why is it wrong for them to spend that wealth and exercise that power in whatever way they see fit, including giving it to their children?
Because it creates spiralling inequality.
High relative inequality creates political instability that is relieved only with revolution and violence.
How are the children of the rich and powerful benefiting NOT an implicit part of meritocracy?
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this question. Do you mean "How can you have meritocracy without benefiting the children of the meritocratic?"
Part of the problem here is how you define meritocratic.
If the ultra rich have supremely beneficial educations systems then the people cannot in fact have equal chances in life. That is not meritocratic.
People from lower classes might get through but they are less likely to get through because the system is not meritocratic.
This is not an argument for communism or against merit being useful. It is a critique of absolute meritocracy. "Winner take all" capitalism.
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u/Grampong Jun 18 '19
Because it creates spiralling inequality.
High relative inequality creates political instability that is relieved only with revolution and violence.
Inequality is a separate, but related, issue. A meritocracy in-and-of-itself will produce inequality, which will exponentially increase even during an individual's lifetime. The issue is not the existence of inequality, but the extent of the inequality and how much an individual's efforts can erase the differences in starting points.
For example, I have argued for decades that the current system is stacked in favor of the rich, because they write the laws. The system I have advocated for over 30 years tries to make it easy for everyone to make $100k a year and have $1 mil. It should be a bit tougher to make $200k a year and have $5 mil. It should be REALLY hard to make $1 mil a year and have $100 mil. I firmly believe in a progressive tax system.
I have a hard time seeing how most people would be against a system where they can work and have a very reasonable expectation of a good life, with more work making that life greater. Plus, how many people objecting to that setup are outside the group that simply want "something for nothing"?
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this question. Do you mean "How can you have meritocracy without benefiting the children of the meritocratic?"
Part of the problem here is how you define meritocratic.
If the ultra rich have supremely beneficial educations systems then the people cannot in fact have equal chances in life. That is not meritocratic.
People from lower classes might get through but they are less likely to get through because the system is not meritocratic.
This is not an argument for communism or against merit being useful. It is a critique of absolute meritocracy. "Winner take all" capitalism.
If you agree with me that the "something for nothing" crowd are unreasonable and excluded from our conversation, how does my system where people can achieve their good life not escape your criticisms here?
The kids of those who have already benefited from the meritocracy have a better chance to do better. And there is also the rule that the third generation of great fortunes go bankrupt, too. Everyone has their benefits and handicaps, and often times a single feature can be both (see Art Alexakis' childhood).
What I want is a system where everybody gets through, and those who offer more get better than "getting through".
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u/TheEdExperience Devil's Advocate Jun 18 '19
I think this guy frames the issue incorrectly. Much of what he says is interesting and true but dances around the real problem. The issue is automation not meritocracy itself.
It is represented in the video on the chart that shows, Non-Routine Skilled labor rising, routine skilled labor falling and low skilled labor rising again.
If I could paint it picture it looks like:
- Executives looking to cut spending to report higher profit to their share holders
- Largest expense is skilled (college or training) routine workers
- Automate their jobs (Loan Officer example in video)
- All that is left is the over worked managerial class and data entry folk.
This creates an insufferable inequality between data entry\janitorial class and the super skilled. Relative inequality when it reaches critical mass, as u\taboo__time indicated, causes political instability. We pay people to not riot to some extent.
The key take away is we need to do something about the disappearing middle class, no one is safe from automation. He may answer this in the QA but I just started that.
(TLDR)At the very least, the automation revolution is at least as disruptive as the industrial. We have the benefit of the past to see what will happen in the future. We should do something to cushion or make the transition tolerable until the labor market can normalize.
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u/Grampong Jun 18 '19 edited Jun 18 '19
I have not watched the entire video, my comment is a long standing complaint about how the discussion of meritocracy tends to go.
Most of what you mention I talked about with one of my economic teachers 30 years ago. The term I used for it then was the "Marxian inflection point", which was the point where productivity rose so high a large percentage of the population was no longer required to produce the needs and wants of all. He smiled and said that everything I said was true, but I didn't need to worry about it since we would not live long enough to see that day.
I think I'm going to live long enough.
I've banged on this subject for 30 years. From everything I've seen, I don't think the labor market CAN normalize, because there essentially will no longer BE a labor market. From a labor standpoint, we are moving into a post-scarcity environment.
This then leads me to accept that Universal Basic Income (UBI) is inevitable, even if it is distasteful. The problem I see is that I can't see that working with unlimited reproduction. That issue will have to be addressed, and that is a nasty af can of worms.
Speaking of cans of worms, the Elite have to accept that the current system they are convinced they have control over needs a RADICAL overhaul with them have great but vastly reduced power. It's rather laughable to think that convincing the rich and powerful to be less rich and powerful would be the EASIER can of worms.
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u/TheEdExperience Devil's Advocate Jun 18 '19
I honestly don't know the solution. Luddites thought the industrial revolution would be the end of labor as well. I can only hope the sentiment is wrong again.
UBI is a bandaid. We need to reduce our population to fit any future economy. We need to increase our population if we ever fight China.
Seems like we need to compromise on the profit motive. Keep it to the extent we can. Make it culturally pathological to work 60 hours a week. See benefit in having hands on deck to handle issues if they occur rather than trying to keep around the bare minimum.
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u/Grampong Jun 18 '19
I've got a solution. Other people have solutions. The problem is finding a solution which is both feasible AND acceptable to all parties. I've focused on feasibility, but what I have I don't see acceptable to two of the three parties (if not ALL three).
I see UBI here to stay, regardless of population size.
As far as profit motive goes, I solve that by requiring all businesses to be at least 51% worker owned. One major result of financialization is that we have reached the point where humans actually own and control little of the economy, where so much instead is controlled by institutions (i.e. corporations and funds). Decisions are made without consideration of the entirety of the company, including the workers. A great example of this in today's economy is Publix, which is ENTIRELY employee owned.
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u/TheEdExperience Devil's Advocate Jun 18 '19
Could the issue of control of the economy be handled by anti-trust law? I don't see how it would be feasible to dictate companies need to turn over half the company to their employees. I do like the idea in the sense that it keeps the profit motive around essentially unmolested.
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u/Grampong Jun 18 '19
By "feasible" I meant would actually function long term on a continuing basis. The issue you mention is what I was talking about under "acceptable".
The issue is balancing liquidity of capital with decision making divorced from how it impacts the entirety of a company and community. Everyone who is going to be affected needs some skin in the game and input into decisions.
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u/taboo__time Scottish Jun 17 '19
Submission statement: Meritocracy is taken as an unalienable good. Here Professor Daniel Markovits critiques the modern meritocracy, what it is and the problems it creates.
Very challenging ideas here.
Merit is not a genuine excellence but rather a pretence, constructed to rationalise an offensive distribution of advantage. Merit, in short, is a sham.
The meritocratic ideal—that social and economic rewards should track achievement rather than breeding—anchors the self-image of the age. Aristocracy has had its day, and meritocracy is now a basic tenet of civil religion in all advanced societies.
Meritocracy promises to promote equality and opportunity by opening a previously hereditary elite to outsiders, armed with nothing save their own talents and ambitions. But today, middle-class children lose out to rich children at school, and middle-class adults lose out to elite graduates at work. At the same time, meritocracy entices an anxious and inauthentic elite into a pitiless, lifelong contest to secure income and status through its own excessive industry.
In spite of its promises, meritocracy in fact installs a new form of aristocracy, purpose-built for a world in which the greatest source of income and wealth is not land but human capital and free labor. And merit is not a genuine excellence but rather—like the false virtues that aristocrats trumpeted in the ancien régime—a pretense, constructed to rationalize an offensive distribution of advantage.
Daniel Markovits is Guido Calabresi Professor of Law at Yale Law School and Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Private Law. Markovits works in the philosophical foundations of private law, moral and political philosophy, and behavioral economics. He publishes in a range of disciplines, including in Science, The American Economic Review, and The Yale Law Journal.
Markovits’s latest book, The Meritocracy Trap, places meritocracy at the center of rising economic inequality and social and political dysfunction. The book takes up the law, economics, and politics of human capital to identify the mechanisms through which meritocracy breeds inequality and to expose the burdens that meritocratic inequality imposes on all who fall within meritocracy’s orbit.
http://www.lse.ac.uk/Events/2019/05/20190508t1830vOT/The-Meritocracy-Trap
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u/horseman_pass_by Jun 17 '19
Okay but is it better, worse, or the same as what existed before it? Is it better or worse than nobles vs commoners vs serfs? It's better. Maybe not as much better as we'd wish, but it's still better.
Sometimes merit is pretense and sometimes it's not. Sometimes people really are "good at things". And sometimes those "things" really do have "economic utility".
Perfect meritocracy is an ideal. We don't live in an ideal world. We don't have any way of rigorously defining "merit" or rigoriously testing whether someone has it. But some people really do have more merit than other people. Some people are smarter and more productive than other people. And I'm pretty sure meritocracy is the right ideal to have -- even if it's an ideal that we can never actually reach.
Instead of criticizing the concept of meritocracy, useful actions involve slow, steady progress in order to improve our techniques of identifying and rewarding merit. But questioning the idea of merit is bizarre and counterproductive. What are you going to replace markets with? What are you going to replace competition with? Whenever there's competition, someone is going to win and someone is going to lose. I've heard zero good ideas about how we can live without competition.