<p>…or is human society always bound to a supply-and-demand system?</p>
<p>I haven’t thought about the issue much, but here is one quick example that comes to mind.
I think many here would argue that celebrities are one of the most overpaid people in the world. Not all, but many receive such fame and wealth through luck rather than merit (I know plenty of people around me who are blessed with beautiful looks and a great voice, but they were never given the opportunities).</p>
<p>It seems that capitalism is the closest we have to meritocracy, but can the flaws of capitalism be fixed somehow through the proper engineering of society?</p>
<p>I’m sure “government regulation” isn’t the answer to celebrities’ mass earnings.</p>
<p>Of course government regulation can be used to create a meritocracy. What do you think a benevolent dictatorship is? If you get the most qualified person as dictator, then that person gets advisors that are also at the top of the “qualified” heap and so on, pretty soon you’ve got the head of a pyramid set up. Then you can enforce social constructs that encourage people to fall in to form the rest of the pyramid. Of course, implementing it would most likely be horribly unethical, but that has nothing to do with whether or not it would work.</p>
<p>Your post doesn’t make much sense, but I’ll answer the question posed in the thread title.</p>
<p>No. The wealthy and powerful will always have an unfair advantage in the game. True, success is a function of hard work and intelligence, but a lot forget that it is also a function of opportunity and connections. The wealthy and powerful have huge advantages in those last two qualities.</p>
<p>I don’t really see how a meritocracy could ever work. For one thing, it would take the human element out of life, and everybody would be trying everything in his or her power to ramp up his or her “qualifications.” The current system of being accepted to schools and jobs just because of the “it” factor is really better. Besides, if you get into a good school, or get a good job, and you’re not qualified for it, you won’t have success there anyway. A meritocracy is flawed idealism, and I think it’s overrated.</p>
<p>At my previous job, I worked with a woman who had four or five college degrees, and years of experience in her field. However, she was really annoying, and she was probably my least favorite coworker. I cringed every time she talked. I fail to see how that makes a meritocracy ideal. She was, after all, “good” at her job, but her annoying qualities detracted from her “qualifications.”</p>
<p>No, because the meritless would never be happy in a meritocracy, and the meritless far outweigh the merited. If a meritocracy was ever created, it quickly get corrupted with mediocre people weaseling their way to the top. If the government was deciding how the merit system was layed out, certainly they would rig it to keep themselves at the top.</p>
<p>We live in a meritocracy now. Some of the rewards people enjoy were earned by their ancestors. The prosperity of one’s decendants is a reward one gets for doing well.</p>
<p>The most important feature for a society is opportunity to excell and achieve and be rewarded for effort and ability. Slothful children of afflence should decline in status , generation by generation, as as strivers better their lot, generation by generation.</p>
<p>Looking at our society through the lenses of evolutionary anthropology, behavioral economics and game theory, one can identify at least two major strategies: reciprocity-based altruism (‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine’, ‘Treat others as you would be treated’,…) and self-interest (‘Self-sufficiency, becasue I can’t assume anyone will take care of me’). Each strategy is a two-edged sword with pros and cons. And like the wave-particle nature of light, they exist in a continual interplay. </p>
<p>BigG, aren’t the benefits of a meritocracy diluted into nothingness if just deserts are only received over the ever increasing timespan of generations?</p>
<p>So your argument against striving for a meritocracy is that you had an annoying coworker once?</p>
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<p>No we don’t. Your chances for success explode when you are lucky enough to be born to a family that lives in the suburbs and sends you to the schools there. Being born poor and going to rural or inner-city schools gives you much much much fewer opportunities.</p>
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<p>No it wasn’t. In the book, humans were engineered into different social classes.</p>
<p>However, I’m sure that the world in Brave New World is not what the OP had in mind when arguing for meritocracy. It isn’t a necessary conclusion of choosing a meritocracy either. I don’t see why it is relevant.</p>
<p>This is true. How would you create a meritocracy? Would you say, “All you universities and companies must hire people based on their qualifications”? Then there would be a bunch of lines that would have to be drawn to determine if someone is the most qualified for a position. For instance, it may be admirable that Candidate A volunteers three days a week at the soup kitchen, but is that relevant to the position he or she is seeking? Does having more education automatically make someone more qualified than someone with less education?</p>
<p>The hard part wouldn’t be in drawing the lines. It would be guaranteeing that everybody starts at the same starting line, if you know what I mean.</p>
<p>Thread title is “Is it possible to create a meritocracy?” Brave New World shows that, with the proper technology, it would be possible, even if it’s not what one typically thinks of. It’s also relevant because it’s the easiest way to sort by merit.</p>