Meritocracy

[Javaman]

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.

Listen, I'm not a fan of Marxism particularly. We live in a meritocracy now. It's simply the measure of merit is how much money you make. I think we could step that in a better direction by saying "how much money you make with eco friendly means" or "how much money you make without stepping on other people". I'd prefer a non-capitalist focus like "the most intelligent well meaning philanthrope is the top of the hierarchy and the rest are ranked by IQ, EQ and intention" because I do feel capitalism exacerbates greed. I don't lean towards the strictly deterministic because I'm not sure it takes into account unknown variables very well.

I'm not certain we agree on a definition of fruits, or what exploitation is in these instances, but we can agree that a great first step would be education. It would also be the best place to small scale a meritorious system.

Yes labor is a merit, generating useful ideas is merit, moving the economy is merit. In some places, having lots of likes facebook or youtube is worthy of merit by ad companies, tricking the population to buy things it doesn't need, being a celebrity, convincing people that debt is good... all those are merited somewhere. I think one of the few useful ways to work on societal change is to examine and manipulate it's framework. What would you prefer to see at the top of the dominance hierarchy we call society: ability, beauty, money, power, wealth, education, work ethic, crops produced, etc. and why?

No, we don't. There's no point in carrying on this conversation until you acknowledge this. Constructing an alternate definition of merit just doesn't cut it.

Systemic racism, sexism (and lots of other isms) are baked into our society. The fact is that being white, male, heterosexual, realatively wealthy, and Christian confers such a tremendous advantage in our society that fretting about an individual's "merits" is not just a distraction, it makes things worse.