Meritocracy and its discontents: The merits of revisiting Michael Young
There are a lot of interesting ideas to unpack here:<p>- As the initial meritocrats (does that pass as a word?) benefit from the meritocracy and accumulate wealth, they use that wealth to increase the odds for their children, resulting in a future where the &quot;meritocracy&quot; is made up of people whose merits in education were largely paid for, and so it ceases to be a meritocracy and ends up resembling an oligarchy.<p>- People outside the meritocracy can&#x27;t stand the smugness of elites, who have better opportunities and thus better outcomes.<p>- This results in the breakdown of democratic function over time, because hating elites results in fact-denying when those elites are factually correct. An example is how the uneducated largely voted for Brexit, and won&#x27;t change their minds in the face of evidence that it was a bad vote, because they don&#x27;t want to admit that they were wrong and the elites were right.<p>For me this presents some of the issues brought about by large inequality, whether brought about by traditional feudalism, oligarchy, or new-fangled &quot;meritocracy.&quot; It causes unrest such that inevitably results in revolution.<p>I also question the value of a meritocracy on its basic premise. It seems unfair in a society with so much wealth that &quot;lazy&quot; people or &quot;dumb&quot; people get such a short end of the stick when it is not their fault that they were born that way. Many of us <i>want</i> to build cool things and make money and contribute to the world, and capitalism makes sure we&#x27;re rewarded for it, but for those of us who don&#x27;t I see no reason they should be condemned to poverty while there is the means to feed them.