(July 29, 2019 at 2:36 pm)tackattack Wrote: Is your/our/a society equal or egalitarian enough, fundamentally, to be an effective meritocracy? Meritocracy can mean treating people with fundamentally unequal backgrounds as superficially the same which ignores and even conceals the real advantages and disadvantages that are unevenly distributed to different segments of an inherently unequal society. What would it take to make your society more meritorious in it's reward system. At what threshold of egalitarianism could a move from elitism of person to meritorious structure be a better step? Would it be a better step? Just open for thoughts and discussions.
I think people are (ideally) entitled to 100% of the fruits of their labor. But no one seems to be able to be figure out how to do things without some exploitation. It's like exploitation is some kind of constant that makes production possible. I think Marx had a pretty good idea of a meritocracy, but all the attempts to realize his vision are worse (in the exploitation department) than capitalism.
To me, elimination of all exploitation is essential if you are aiming for a "meritocracy." I mean, you can't call it a meritocracy if your "merit" can be claimed by those to whom it does not belong.
One thing I think we could do is implement free education (all the way through grad school) to students who demonstrate mastery. Scholarships and such do this to some degree, but they are more like a lottery (much of the time) than a functionary system that rewards merit.
