"A meritocracy is a system in which the people who are the luckiest in their health and genetic endowment; luckiest in terms of family support, encouragement, and, probably, income; luckiest in their educational and career opportunities; and luckiest in so many other ways difficult to enumerate — these are the folks who reap the largest rewards. The only way for even a putative meritocracy to hope to pass ethical muster, to be considered fair, is if those who are the luckiest in all of those respects also have the greatest responsibility to work hard, to contribute to the betterment of the world, and to share their luck with others."
-- Ben Bernanke, Princeton University Commencement 2013
Well when has this ever not been the case? The way most of our economic systems are set up, the disparity of wealth between nations, between races, etc. They are all about this luck. In fact the difference between human beings and animal is exactly that as well. The concept taken to its conclusion is absurd. The point that he's trying to make is one for a more social system. But gasp that's socialism, isn't it? Capital drives the system. Those who hold capital want more capital. So obviously they are going to do everything in their power to do just that. To ask them to appeal to lower common denominators, well that's sort of like asking a General to hire less competent soldiers; how then do you expect them to win a war?
This speech was given to Princeton undergraduates -- 1150 of the most fortunate and well supported people in the world. He's urging them to be self aware of their immense good fortune, and to be generous and grateful rather than selfish and envious.
Princeton is the epitome of a capitalistic school. Very few students will become socialists. Having more Rockefellers and Carnegies (who have both given to the university) is not a bad thing for this world.
Weren't they also both robber barons who used philanthropy to retroactively clear their names after they've made their billions (similar to the later Bill Gates, but even less scrupulous)?
Actually, they arguably weren't. In his Rockefeller biography Titan, Ron Chernow notes that Rockefeller gave to charity from his earliest days of income, well before it was clear that he would become exceptionally wealthy.
>Well when has this ever not been the case? The way most of our economic systems are set up, the disparity of wealth between nations, between races, etc. They are all about this luck. In fact the difference between human beings and animal is exactly that as well. The concept taken to its conclusion is absurd.
More need to come to this realization and abandon the idea of absolute meritocracy altogether instead of paying lip service with talk of "equality of opportunity".
>It is important in disputes that law treat us equally because it is necessary for the preservation of suppressing violence by forcing all competition into voluntary exchange. Otherwise the institution cannot provide the incentive to suppress our instincts and redirect our efforts.
>But the western illusion that those values necessary to create incentives for us as an individual economic unit can insulate us from our family, and clan, and the necessary operation of our reproductive evolutionary system is a postmodernist, socialist fiction that assumes economic and legal equality can be extended to genetic equality – contrary to all evidence and reason.
>The rawlsian veil of ignorance is a complex rhetorical device for the neurolinguistic programming of the masses precisely to confuse them into the illusion of biological equality and to divorce the individual from his ancestry so that his loyalties are to the state and rather than to his familial genetic heritage.
>The blank slate, likewise is a device for the same purpose. So are diversity and open immigration.
-- Ben Bernanke, Princeton University Commencement 2013