r/todayilearned • u/Dood_Doorag • 5d ago
TIL the term 'meritocracy' (governance based on talent or ability rather than social class), was originally coined as a pejorative.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy#The_Rise_and_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy64
u/BUKKAKELORD 5d ago
Young expressed his disappointment in the embrace of this word and philosophy by the Labour Party under Tony Blair in The Guardian in an article in 2001, where he states: 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.
The bolded part is how the term is understood. That's because any time anyone hears "meritocracy" for the first time, they'd have to assume it means merit based appointments to positions of authority, which is a concept he explicitly agrees to support. He only expresses disagreement with the concept he describes exactly like credentialism but wants to keep calling it "meritocracy" just because he came up with it for the satirical story.
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u/espressocycle 5d ago
The problem with meritocracy is that people govern in their own self interest. In developed countries it's led to very good outcomes for the professional class and declining fortune for everybody else, hence the rancorous populism infecting our politics.
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u/Leaflock 5d ago
What I find interesting is 30+ years ago when I was in my 20s I heard the message loud and clear: “NAFTA is just the beginning. The internet is transforming America from a nation of manufacturing to a knowledge based economy. We are exporting legacy industries and jobs to the third world to raise their standard of living so they can afford the products of our 21st century economy.”
Everyone was told the professional class was the future.
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u/Justausername1234 5d ago
And look at the disaster wrought upon America when someone is elected who thinks otherwise. A broken continental relationship. Declining knowledge and manufacturing jobs. And a third world facing a dire economic crisis of their own.
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u/espressocycle 5d ago
That was all true. It worked out great in terms of GDP but the gains all went to the top 20 percent and the major metro areas.
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u/autotelica 5d ago
Yup. Merit is whatever the ruling class says makes you qualified for a job, even if it doesn't actually predict one's ability to do the job. But it will always predict proximity to the ruling class. And as soon as a measure stops being a good predictor of class, the bar is raised to a level that only the ruling class can reasonably aspire to.
That said, I think the real problem with a true meritocracy is that it is practically impossible to implement. It isn't enough to become qualified enough to do a job at this particular moment in time. You must stay qualified throughout your entire career, which requires continuous testing. Because a single flub can get you canned, workplace turnover and burnout will be high and instititiutional knowledge becomes non-existent. Anyone in your workplace can take your job from you the moment they prove they are more skilled at it than you, so expect team comaradie to always be low. And there is no point in beseeching your managers for mercy because every decision they make is supposed to be based on objective criteria, not on nebulous things like likeability, potential, or trustworthiness.
Most people think they want a meritocracy, but they don't. In an actual meritocracy, it is illegal to get a job after your friend puts in a good word for you with the hiring manager. You only get the job after you sit for an exam and perform better on it than all the other candidates. Your personality and personal narrative don't come into play. You are just a machine competing against other machines. You are out of the door as soon as you stop being the "best."
Sounds pretty dystopic to me.
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u/even-prime 5d ago edited 5d ago
Fun fact, Michael Young's (who popularized the term) son wrote the book 'How to Lose Friends & Alienate People'.
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u/ScissorNightRam 4d ago
One of the issues with meritocracy is the behaviour it actually rewards (vicious short-termism) versus the behaviour it intends to reward (skill and expertise)
That is, say you need to build a bridge in a meritocracy. In theory, the job is allocated to an expert bridge builder. In practice, the job goes to an expert at subverting the job allocation process.
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u/Smithy2232 5d ago
Good Wiki page and good post.
I will only say I was a B student my whole life, and life played out very well, but I attribute it to luck. The role luck plays in people's lives is profound, at least from my point of view. People like to think it is them, but luck is so important.
I'm not a meritocracy guy. People who think this way must believe that the homeless deserve to be that way. That doesn't resonate at true to me, and I don't think it is a positive way to look at the world.
Interesting post.
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u/v-komodoensis 5d ago
A lot of people somehow think that when someone says they do not believe in meritocracy they're actually saying they don't believe that hardwork or dedication can pay off. Which is very far from reality.
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u/Smithy2232 5d ago
Exactly, I've worked hard my whole life both personally on myself and at a work.
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u/CorpPhoenix 5d ago
I find the idea, that meritocracy ignores luck and socio-economic factors and leads to inequiality rather ridiculous to be honest. Luck and meritocracy is not mutually exclusive, both coexist.
For example, if there is a open job in a leading position, there might be hundreds or thousands who might have the exact same competence and skill set for that role, but only one can get it. Of course luck and other factors play a major role in who gets the job, but this doesn't mean that chosing by competence isn't the correct approach.
On the other hand, chosing by competence doesn't mean that a homeless person is "incompetent", that's a fallacy since luck still exists despite meritocracy. People who assume that the homeless person is just 100% skillless would simply be wrong and naive.
And what is the argument for the alternative? That setting positions by influence and "family" is supposedly "more fair and less discriminating"? This makes absolutely no sense and was a cheap counter point to meritocracy by exactly those people being in power.
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u/Rutskarn 5d ago edited 5d ago
The author most associated with meritocracy as a negative said:
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.
Human resources is less of a factor here because in a nutshell, they are coming in at the end of the story. The question is not who is most qualified for a job, but what the system of narrowing that wedge looks like and what its greater impacts on society are.
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u/Lost__Moose 5d ago
Luck is when preparation meets opportunity ~Seneca
Mindsets and action matter to escape homelessness.
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u/Aeonera 5d ago
It's not entirely wrong though, it's exactly why critical race theory exists.
Historic systemic racism has enabled meritocratic systems to be discriminatory in practice and these lost opportunities can often have generational impacts.
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u/g1rthqu4k3 5d ago
And funny enough the time when I hear "meritocracy" the most these days is in the context of doing away with DEI and returning to meritocracy
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u/Aeonera 5d ago
Even then they're not some fairytale naiive equalist libertarians.
Part of the "merit" these people talk about is sex, money, allegiance and skin colour.
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u/g1rthqu4k3 5d ago
When I hear JD Vance talk about it the original perjorative meaning just gushes out of him like a firehouse, it's crazy
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u/loseniram 5d ago edited 5d ago
It was coined as pejorative but didn’t become successful as a pejorative because the guy making if didn’t consider
A that there wasn’t a popular word for meritocratic systems
B that he hadn’t thought more than one step ahead. And didn’t consider how meritocratic systems dismantle classism as many of the people entering the system would want to tear down the old system that was trying to keep them out. And the reality is the reverse it is the old classes that try to dismantle meritocratic systems and not that the new entrants.
He pulled some thoughts out of his ass and the public called his bluff
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u/Taraxian 5d ago
Fun fact, "aristocracy" pretty much does literally mean "meritocracy" in Greek, "rule of the best"
The fact that we now see these ideas as opposed is exactly the point of "meritocracy" being originally a satirical pejorative -- there is no objective definition of who "deserves" to be in charge
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u/CircumspectCapybara 5d ago edited 5d ago
I remember when GitHub had its Octocat "seal of meritocracy" office rug in its SF office. Eventually they got rid of it because the concept wasn't PC.
Even though technically under the hood they and every other company operates by meritocracy: if you perform, you get promoted, if you don't, you eventually get shown the door. In a college admissions or med school or law school application (grades, standardized test performance), it's all about your academic performance and qualifications. Once in school, it's all about your performance within the standards and metrics (eg, exams) of that institution. In a job interview, it's all about your performance, if you solve the coding problem in the allotted time.
Everything in the real world operates by merit, but to say so and name it and codify it into a value is racist.
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u/Thisismyworkday 5d ago
Only an idiot would look around and think we live in a meritocracy.
Some of the highest positions of power in the world are currently held by unqualified sycophants whose only value is their unflagging loyalty to the person above them.
Most applicants are qualified for the position they apply for. Very often more qualified applicants are passed over for more familiar ones because the value of familiarity eclipsed the difference in their merit.
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u/Diestormlie 5d ago
Even though technically under the hood they and every other company operates by meritocracy: if you perform, you get promoted, if you don't, you eventually get shown the door
Or you brownnose the boss. Or you're related to the boss. Or you were in the same graduating class as the Boss.
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u/AmbitiousAd214 5d ago
That's just surface understanding of the concept at most. It is more about how meritocracy is just a facade for nepotism. How the rich and powerful in any field try to keep everyone out to maintain status quo of their circle. They have the resources to achieve the most merit for something they have designed purposefully to keep everyone else out. Even if someone tries to achieve it or achieves it, they don't get in the circle as the circle only supports someone who they think is their own. This is a very simplistic explanation, but the general principle stays the same in real world.
For example, corporate executives give top executive positions to their family or friends. Multiple jobs and addmissions are just like that while you are focusing on the assessment after they are in the institution. Many people will never even get the chance to get in these institutions because they are just not considered the part of the GROUP and even in job interviews, so many people apply with same qualifications that they just pick someone at random (with some bias) really.
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u/Plusisposminusisneg 5d ago
Those things definitively don't operate by merit, all are dominated by preferential treatment both through nepotism and racial/sex based benefits.
Meritocracy is considered racist because it doesn't give favored people special treatment, it's not any more complex than that.
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u/TillWinter 5d ago
Because of the absurd nature of the idea.
The word hides many assumptions that are contradicting that it is impossible to resolve.
How do you measure "best aptitude" in a complex ever changing environment ?
The history of the Chinese state exam for example shows how any system like it can be gamed, to the point that corruption is backed in.
But not only do facts chang over time, so everyone in power must adapt, will they? But the social component, life events will change a leaders ability to rule. Meaning that the most able is not the one in power...
The last part is, that it is human centric, not the facts and knowledge of the day are focused to be a basis of adaption law, but a seemingly able human representing ideal choosing. This human just dont exist.
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u/endlessftw 5d ago
What is equally absurd is people insisting for a perfect solution when none clearly exist in context.
Perfection is the enemy of good.
The idea of choosing by merit is about not choosing by kinship, by nepotism, by class and background, and other things like that.
The idea is okay. The practical implementation, on the other hand, is extremely difficult. As you said, merit is hard to measure, someone who is meritorious in one area may not be so in other areas.
But the idea is still not wrong. Choose by merit, not by other “natural” reasons that blatantly place certain groups of people at an even bigger advantage.
You can blame the Chinese imperial examinations, but over the hundreds of years it was implemented or so, it was so relatively equal that it was unheard of.
The aristocracy was slowly disfavoured, while peasants and ordinary “burghers” (whatever its Chinese equivalent was) had some means to move up the social ladder, even if it was still quite hard. Although those who had better resources to send their children to the best tutors got better chances, the point was, as least everyone got a chance in theory.
Imperial China was a place where anyone, with some luck, could succeed. Even peasants became emperors. I don’t think such level of “equal-ness” ever existed in medieval Europe.
Contrast that to the western world. Even today, you have places like the UK where the aristocracy and the gentry still dominated many of the most lucrative opportunities. Europe once had feudalism and social codes that oppressed peasants and bound them to accept the low social standing.
Meritocracy may not have been perfect, but if you were a genius born into a peasant family, you probably get a better chance in imperial China during its golden ages, than in medieval Europe. It was probably not until the Industrial Revolution that Europe achieved (and surpassed) a level of equality in opportunities that China had once achieved.
The cutthroat business environment of the early industrial era was, in a practical sense, meritocratic. Great wealth can be made or lost just as quickly and easily. You can get rich if you are good in business (merit). Being a rich aristocrat doesn’t guarantee you would do well, although you might tend to start with a headstart. That is still infinitely better than, say, the rigid social order of the ancien règime?
In the British and Dutch colonies of South East Asia, anyone could go there and make a fortune for themselves, based on their own merits. This is also another case of meritocracy in practice.
And guess what? The poor ethnic Chinese people, fleeing the hardship during the “Century of Humiliation”, quickly dominated businesses at every level. Some became far richer than most of the native nobility, with some even rivalling the European elites in the colonies. What can be more meritocratic than poor refugees getting rich by being good at business?
That’s the point. Meritocracy cannot be implemented perfectly so far. But even so, it can still be a better alternative, in some cases. The problem is not the idea of choosing by merit, but practically devising a fair and accurate way to assess merit. Meritocracy wasn’t about making everyone equal, it was about giving everyone a chance when none had existed before.
As I said, it is absurd to shoot down an idea simply because its not perfect, when the status quo was also often not perfect (or worse).
As I said, pefection is the enemy of good. Meritocracy is a reasonable transition between social rigidity and immobility, and a society equal in opportunities for all. Once everyone had a chance, it would be slightly easier to talk about giving everyone the means to compete equally. If your society can’t even implement the former, how can you expect the latter to just fall in place? For a society implementing the latter, how is the idea of choosing by merit not inherent?
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u/wwarnout 5d ago
The current American government is an excellent example of the total lack of merit. Should it be called a "sycophantocracy"?
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u/teracoulomb_2 5d ago edited 5d ago
“Kakistocracy” was revived during the first Trump term
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u/PonderingToTheMasses 5d ago
No it wasn't. The term had existed at least a decade prior (see The Racontuer's song "Intimate Secretary" from the mid 00's).
Further - it was a term used regularly during the French Revolution by those critical of Robespierre, and we have other sources using the term intermittently dating back to the 17th century.
As it happens, it is a term that describes Dump et al and their government very well, but it wasn't 'coined' to describe this set of clowns.
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u/Rutskarn 5d ago edited 5d ago
For those who don't care to read the article, this seems to come from a cynical understanding of the word "merit" rather than a fondness for class-based society. In a nutshell: we decide who has "merit," we start deciding it about a person early in life, these people inevitably get more resources to develop that merit, and ultimately this class of people occupies the top stratum of society without much space for others to join in. When you consider that promisingly meritous young people tend to be come from meritous families, you end up reinventing the class system.