Can you use an example? Thank you.
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Whoever works hardest, and produces the best results, deserves the most rewards – social status, pay, promotions, leadership positions, etc. That’s regardless of age, race, religion, personal connections, wealth, class, etc. And the point of a meritocracy is to equalize all that stuff out so that the benefits are based solely on performance.
The problem is that merit is very subjective. “Best results” is very dependent on a lot of variables and who you ask.
Also, when it comes to the bottom line, someone who works hard, and does an excellent job at it, but has wasted resources doing the wrong thing (no matter how well they did it) is not objectively better than a lazy person who avoided wasting resources or an incompetent person who failed to do the wrong thing.
You get upvotes for making a reasonable, well-researches post. Not because you have a lot of karma, compliment OP, or give yourself gold.
Earning your wealth and class/ place in society. For contrast, aristocracy is the social system whereby you’re born into your wealth and class. America fought a whole war to get rid of this and royalty and then spent a couple hundred years replacing them with their own wealthy classes and “royalty.”
The idea that merit is the best measure. The one with the most merit wins. That is, the idea/person/etc that is best (by whatever measure one decides to define it) rises to the top.
In a company for example, a true meritocracy would ensure the employees that are most impactful to the business get promoted (vs those who are most liked or best known by the boss). You could also say the best ideas or answers are used (instead of the most senior employee’s idea being used). This is basically never the case, but some are better than others.
An example of the opposite would be how many trades work. Most commercial pilots for example progress with seniority – if you’ve been there longer, you have a better salary, access to fly larger planes, etc. It doesn’t matter if you are a better/safer/skilled pilot.
It means society ranks you based on the merit of your contributions.
If you’re a lazy fuckoff or mentally incompetent, you’re treated like dirt and there are no welfare or social programs to bail you out.
If you are naturally gifted or otherwise hardworking and develop skills the hard way, society rewards you with fancypants and lollipops.
The reason it’s a flawed system is because merit is subjective, and we still need to look out for our communities and offer a helping hand when people are in need, instead of shrugging and just saying, “well, they’ll have to work themselves out of that rut on their own”
A meritocracy is a system that rewards the people who put in the most work/are the most skilled. It’s a system where your Merit, is rewarded.
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