Meritocracy is bad
Matthew Yglesias,
SlowBoring,
Mar 18, 2021
This post argues that meritocracy is bad, but not for the usual reason. The usual reason, we are told, is that the people we call the elite aren't really that smart. "The idea that America's existing elites are somehow 'pretty dumb' is itself one of the dumbest lies that people tell themselves," writes Matthew Yglesias. "Our society is great at identifying smart people and giving them important or lucrative jobs." The problem is that "just assigning all power and responsibility and economic reward to the best and brightest is a genuinely bad idea.... what you need to do is actually change the framework — have a society that's less based on sorting and ranking, and more based on equality." Well... yeah. The system of rewards for being elite is all out of proportion.
But I really think he misses the main point. We don't say elitism is wrong because elite people are dumb. Rather, we say that the evidence that tells us that elitism is wrong.is that when you look at the elite, you see real failings in intelligence, morality, and basic humanity. On a genetic level, people are more or less the same. The advantages begin in the womb, with better nutrition, then through childhood, with better education and greater aspirations, through to adulthood with inheritances, preferential admission to prestigue institutions, and systemic racism and gender discrimination, among other factors. It's just as likely that a disadvantaged person could have become an elite, but the way the system is set up, they are prevented from advancing, and we promote people with real failings and artificial advantages, instead.
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