So I guess we should get rid of the term "equality" as well, right?
In all seriousness though, entirely scrapping a noble idea because it isn't yet 100% realized is beyond ridiculous and is an example of why many people can't take modern feminists seriously.
You are supposed to work toward realizing goals, not destroying them.
Agree completely. It was a joke that referenced a company value not some guarantee about how the world works. Despite the unfortunate origins of the word meritocracy, the concept is ancient[1] and was always more of a goal than a practical system.
What is strange to me it the feminist philosophy has rather recently turned against the concept[2]. As best I can tell this seems to be to discount "merit" as a defense against sexism.
I'm fascinated by the ability of political identity to shape understanding. It seems almost impossible to resist arguments that advance our goals or grok those that undermine them.
Women not being harassed at the workplace is an entirely possible goal. Meritocracy is impossible.
The very first question that comes into play is "who defines and measures merit?" Consider another failed opportunity at 'meritocracy': eugenics. It was once believed that we could determine some kind of 'genetic quality' and, well, have a meritocracy in human breeding, in a way. Turns out that whole idea is totally broken. At one point in time, people thought IQ was a reasonable way to measure merit. Turns out that it's not.
"Women (and others) do not feel unsafe in their work environment" is reasonably quantifiable, and someday, achievable. 'Merit' is not.
> "Women (and others) do not feel unsafe in their work environment" is reasonably quantifiable, and someday, achievable. 'Merit' is not.
Agreed, but... isn't the 'trying' that counts in terms of the latter? I just don't see the problem in holding up "meritocracy" as something to strive for. I don't think any of us lives in a perfect democracy either, but we are still proud of trying, and think that it's the best way to run things, even if we're painfully aware of the shortcomings.
I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. The idea that a company (we're not talking politics) hires people based only on them being the best at what they do strikes me as sensible, and, no, not the 'status quo'. Here in Italy it's still "who you know" that counts in many cases, so the idea of trying to be more merit-based strikes me as positive, even if, no, no one should think they're 100% there.
I think it's also distracting from the issue at hand, which I think is very real and important.
Meritocracy isn't an ideal – it's a joke, and everyone should be fighting it. (Quoting another comment of mine:)
Meritocracy is not a desirable state of affairs, because it should be obvious that "merit" is a false currency used to justify what is, rather than work toward what should be. It is the quintessential naturalistic fallacy. By definition, an is-ought fallacy such as Meritocracy can not be an ideal (if you misunderstand meritocracy to mean "everyone gets what they deserve" that cannot be an ideal either, as it would be no different from "a world ruled by God", which is an imagined state rather than an ideal).
It amazes me time and again how people can take the term seriously, which only demonstrates how dangerous it is. Such a blatant, perverted joke, a dystopia that some intelligent people mistake for a utopia. Wikipedia says this: "Although the concept has existed for centuries, the term "meritocracy" was first coined in the 1950s. It was used by British politician and sociologist, Michael Young in his 1958 satirical essay, The Rise of the Meritocracy, which pictured the United Kingdom under the rule of a government favouring intelligence and aptitude (merit) above all else... In this book the term had distinctly negative connotations as Young questioned both the legitimacy of the selection process used to become a member of this elite and the outcomes of being ruled by such a narrowly defined group."
I still can't fathom how meritocracy can be taken as anything but a negative. I mean, the first question that comes to mind (or, rather, the second after "what is merit") is, "who has merit and why, and who does not?" Once this question is asked, it is immediately apparent that any attempt to paint "meritocracy" in a positive light is ludicrous.
I don't understand you. Are you saying nobody has merit?
That somebody wrote a parody about it doesn't prove anything.
It's also not obvious that it would cement a status quo: people can still strive to have merit? And does the concept forbid helping people to acquire skills? You can perhaps say Meritocracy is not the whole story (because of the self-sustaining elites problem), but it could be part of the solution, together with the usual efforts to give everybody a chance.
Meritocracy, like all real or imagined power systems, isn't about merit, though – it's about power. Power is real, so who gets it in a meritocracy? Let's say it's people with merit. Alright then, imagine this poor black girl growing up in the projects. She sees drug abuse all around her, but she stays away from it. She grows up and tries really hard to get her kids out of poverty. While she takes two jobs and sits with her kids for hours every day to tutor them, she fails as bad influence proves too strong. Now imagine this boy growing up in Manhattan to rich parents. They send him to all the right schools and make sure he takes part in all the right extracurricular activities. He works hard and gets into Harvard, where he continues to study hard to get his Comp Sci degree. A meritocracy grants power to those with merit: which of these two people will have power?
One of the reasons meritocracy is a joke is that merit cannot be measured; only success. Those who claim to believe in meritocracy think it simply means removing power from those who've gained success without merit (say, through connections and/or inheritance). But that doesn't really change the picture much, because the biggest bias is against those who haven't had success at all, in spite of their merit.
Like I said in my previous comment, when considering meritocracy, you should ask yourself "who does not have merit and why?"
Still, you can not seriously ask of tech companies to hire the poor girl from the slum instead of the Harvard comp sci major because the girl never had a chance to learn comp sci? I don't think such a rule would be beneficial for society. If comp sci doesn't convince you, imagine you are seriously ill. Who should be your physician - somebody who studied medicine at Harvard, or somebody who never had a chance to study medicine?
As I said, I don't see why Meritocracy could not be part of the solution. I don't think it implies that society shouldn't try to give people a fair chance all along the way. It doesn't even define what kind of merits should be rewarded. Perhaps "helping people to achieve their potential" would be the merit regarded the highest.
And if you dismiss Meritocracy on those grounds you mentioned, aren't you straight back in communism territory? You probably wouldn't be allowed to pay the comp sci major more than any other unskilled worker, either. Otherwise it would be unfair, right?
> Still, you can not seriously ask of tech companies to hire the poor girl from the slum
True, but that doesn't make meritocracy an ideal. It's just how things are.
> As I said, I don't see why Meritocracy could not be part of the solution.
Again, how is meritocracy different from the status quo, then? But the reason your meritocracy is a problem more than a solution is twofold: first, it focuses effort on the wrong people (those who have success without merit) rather than those who need society's help. If your system is first let's wrestle power from those who have it without merit and only then turn our attention to the real problem, then your priorities are messed up. Second, it does all this by believing it somehow rewards merit while it really rewards privilege combined with some merit. A system not calling itself a meritocracy at least acknowledges its own unfairness.
"True, but that doesn't make meritocracy an ideal. It's just how things are."
What principle should tech companies use for hiring? And other companies, too?
Even if you say they should hire less skilled people and try to train them, that demand sounds like a tax to me. So perhaps it would be better to simply use taxes to train people, rather than burdening companies with something they are not specialized on? To start a company to cure cancer, you would then not only have to be an expert in curing cancer, but also in teaching people skills. That would raise the bar for creating successful companies significantly.
"it focuses effort on the wrong people (those who have success without merit)"
Ah, now we arrive at a crucial point: the anti-meritocracy crowd seems to think privileged people can never have merit. So if a Harvard graduate cures cancer, it counts less than if a girl from the slums does it. In fact a Harvard graduate doesn't deserve any recognition at all, he/she should probably be ashamed for curing cancer, thereby robbing the slum girl of her chance to do so.
I don't think such a value system can ever provide good results. Why not simply stick to the facts "cancer was cured, how much is that worth to me", rather than making moral judgements on the people who cured it?
Also, how can you argue against meritocracy with the argument it "focuses on people who have success without merit", when Meritocracy demands exactly the opposite of that?
> What principle should tech companies use for hiring? And other companies, too?
Whatever works for them. But companies, at least in America, are not in the business of fixing society but that of making profit. As long as they remember that's what they're doing it's OK. I just think it makes them look stupid if they consider themselves to be some sort of utopia.
> the anti-meritocracy crowd seems to think privileged people can never have merit.
No. But "merit" is the least contribution to success. Otherwise, you'd think all merit is concentrated in about a billion people living in the West. Most success is 90% luck and 10% merit. Also, calling people "anti-meritocracy" is kinda funny, as meritocracy was intended as a parody of society. It was never intended to be taken seriously. I'm not against any kind of parody. I'm certainly pro-meritocracy: I think it's funny as hell.
> Why not simply stick to the facts "cancer was cured, how much is that worth to me", rather than making moral judgements on the people who cured it?
I'm not making a moral judgement. I just don't think that people lucky enough to have opportunities should be worshipped as being more than that. But most importantly, I'm not sure why that would necessarily mean they're the best people to rule society.
> Also, how can you argue against meritocracy with the argument it "focuses on people who have success without merit", when Meritocracy demands exactly the opposite of that?
Again, meritocracy is a parody. It demands nothing other than your laughter at our society's hypocrisy. But if I imagine how people who think it was meant as anything other than a joke take it to mean, I think: okay, so how does meritocracy differ from the system we have now in the eyes of people who don't see it as a joke? I mean, that Harvard guy already has the power. The answer is that these people think that if you're well-nourished, well-educated and study hard at Harvard, then you're fundamentally more deserving than someone who's well nourished and well educated, but gets into Harvard because his parent are super-rich and make a big contribution. Meritocracy implies that the second guy has less merit than the first, while the truth is that they're both mostly lucky, only the first guy works hard in addition to being lucky.
Any system that focuses on taking power from the vanishingly small number of people more fortunate than its believers is, in my opinion, seriously flawed. I prefer systems that focus on those less fortunate than me.
I tried to look up the original parody. Apparently it describes the meritocracy as people constantly being evaluated by IQ tests. That's not really what the current idea of Meritocracy is - I'd assume it would build on actual achievements, not potential skills. So your reference to the parody is really quite useless.
The criticism that there is no objective measurement might still apply, although I'd say sometimes there is. If cancer is cured, it is cured.
"you're fundamentally more deserving than someone who's well nourished and well educated"
I'd say he is more deserving because he can cure cancer - if I am looking for somebody to give my money so that he cures my cancer.
I agree that everything is luck. But I still want the cancer gone. What solution do you propose?
It seems to me the privileged people should receive even less credit, whereas I propose credit should be given for results. You can't blame the slum person for being born in a slum, but you also can't blame the rich person for being born rich.
> but you also can't blame the rich person for being born rich.
I don't. But I don't want to idealize his luck either. If it all comes down to luck, I see little difference between giving power to those lucky enough to be born relatively rich as well as intelligent so that they can cure cancer, vs to those even luckier to be born extremely rich. If luck is your ideology, discriminating between different kinds of luck seems sheer jealousy.
Currently the world defaults on credential-ism, titles and socio-political connections which is definitely a system of class & privilege vs. directly evaluating people on their merits, which is what meritocracy focuses on.
The kid in the slum who can scrap together enough money for a cheap computer and internet connection can become a software engineer that is paid 6 figures. A college education will be something they can never approach unless the state makes it free for them. This is what we strive for.
You say power systems are about power. A meaningless tautology but at least a true statement unlike most of your comments. Are you being purposely dense?
Nobody is saying some people don't have any merit. Everyone has merit but in different amounts for different tasks - get it?
As someone who makes every effort to appear so under-educated, I'd think you of all people would not like to be judged on pure merit. On the other hand, you claimed to think that a juvenile carpet flaunting a very well known political parody as an actual ideal (and not ironically, mind you) was "cool", so I'm not sure what's real and what's a joke any more. If you were being sarcastic, please forgive me for not getting that, but issues such as this are quite serious, so I sometimes miss humor in comments.
If, like me, you thought that carpet was funny because GitHub mistook a parody for real life, then I'm sorry for the misunderstanding.
Something that actively reinforces the status quo by what it is, is unable to ever be “part of the solution” by its very nature. The very idea of meritocracy reinforces the status quo, by virtue of “merit” generally being defined by the people who have the most privilege and power, and who, additionally, rarely ever recognize the merit of the contributions of people who are Not Like Them. (also, the term was coined as a parody, as a warning; it wasn't just "written about")
That criticism doesn't make sense: I don't think anybody believes that in general the people in power today are so because of their merits. So how does a call for meritocracy cement the status quo? I think people want people with actual merit in power instead of many of the current crop.
OK, the GitHub carpet perhaps made that claim, but they were truly trying to create a new kind of company. I'm pretty sure they didn't define merit to be "privilege and power" but coding skills and open source contribution.
Now you can make a very complicated case trying to reason why some people are excluded from open source and programming, but I don't really buy it. Everybody can start coding with an investment of perhaps 300$. Maybe some people are unlucky in that they never hit upon the idea. But it would be very difficult to prove that people can be actively prevented from programming (except by ways that would exclude them from everything, like making them slaves and never giving them any free time to do anything).
Also, why does the status quo always have to be bad?
> But it would be very difficult to prove that people can be actively prevented from programming
Well, kids growing up in poverty without the right role models are pretty close to being "actively prevented from programming".
> Also, why does the status quo always have to be bad?
It doesn't, but it can't be an ideal either. The status quo can be better than the past (or "relatively good"), but still very far from an ideal. If you believe people should always work to make the world better, than trying to maintain the status quo is pretty bad (unless you see some danger looming).
"Well, kids growing up in poverty without the right role models are pretty close to being "actively prevented from programming""
Not really - they can still get a computer for 300$, head to the nearest library and get started.
Yes, there are bad fates - perhaps they never learned to read and so on. It's really possible someone never gets the chance. But as I said, programming is then really the last skill that can be blamed for being unattainable, plenty of other professions that would be way more forbidding.
" If you believe people should always work to make the world better, than trying to maintain the status quo is pretty bad"
But wouldn't people be forced to try to have merit, so they would automatically work on improving the world?
Thank you for this. I hadn't really thought about it before -- "meritocracy" is not a word I can recall ever using -- but this is an excellent argument, and truly hits the nail on the head.
There is an ideal of fairness in hiring and promotion that is to be striven for. But declaring that one's organization has attained it is the height of arrogance.
But with what should meritocracy be replaced? At the workplace I mean.
I get the issue that the elite has the means to reproduce itself. But should that really be the burden of companies, rather than the state (giving people equal access to education I mean).
Even if companies were to train some poor souls into the elite, where should they start? There are so many different disadvantaged people.
You can't replace something that doesn't exist. ;)
If your question is "what is the best way to organize a workplace," well, there are a ton of answers. But it's been repeatedly demonstrated that trying to do it based on some kind of 'merit' system leads to gaming the system, and does not actually reflect any sort of 'merit' whatsoever, while the 'fact' that the system is based on merit is used to reinforce those at the top of the pile at the expense of those at the bottom.
This sounds like throwing all standards out the window.
Should we have a coding test during the phone interview? No, because that sounds like we're making decisions based on some concept of merit.
Should we have the candidate write some code on a whiteboard or a laptop? No, because that sounds like we're making decisions based on some concept of merit.
Should we have the candidate take home a problem and spend a couple of hours on it? No, because that sounds like we're making decisions based on some concept of merit.
Should we promote people who inspire their coworkers, take on extra responsibilities, and get more things done? No, because that sounds like we're making decisions based on some concept of merit.
Companies are going to continue to hire, fire, and promote based on something. Every workplace is going to have some concept of what is merit, what is valued there. Better that it be explicit and understood.
What stood out from that comment [1] was the following:
In this book the term had distinctly negative connotations as Young questioned both the legitimacy of the selection process used to become a member of this elite and the outcomes of being ruled by such a narrowly defined group.
You could argue that successful startups (as well as other successful companies in any category) do something similar with their selection processes (aside from the fact they they do not have or exercise political power). Colloquially, the term "meritocracy" has come to imply "organization with clear and rigorous standards that hires, promotes, and fires based on such standards".
Maybe it's not a perfect word, but there seems to be some general consensus about what it means and what people are aiming at. Perhaps it's better for an organization to be more humble and to strive to be a meritocracy, even if it knows it can't do it perfectly.
If you don't have some concept of "merit" - based on job-specific skill, communication with others, emotional regulation, self-discipline, general effectiveness - how can you staff a company at all?
(based on clarified response in child post - thanks @steveklabnik )
I don't really see much distinction between the intention of "we try to hire good people" and "we objectively determine who the best people are", aside from the humility in the first statement and the hubris in the second one. If there were a process to objectively determine 'merit' for some company and job, people would be all over it. And 'merit' is obviously conditioned on the particular tasks to be done, the culture of the workplace, and a pile of other factors.
Bottom line - to be overly hubristic is not good. But striving to define your company's concept of merit is not a bad thing - it can only help in making better decisions in hiring and promotion.
For the workplace, I assumed "meritocracy" just means trying to hire the best people, which seems the most common strategy? What else should hiring decisions be based upon?
That measurements of merit are flawed is another problem. Does that mean you should never try to determine anybodies skills? What else besides completely random hiring would be possible?
Obviously, you want to hire the best people you can. There is a significant difference between "we try to hire good people" and "we objectively determine who the best people are."
And furthermore, there's a huuuuge difference etween "we try to hire good people" and "the people who currently occupy a particular place in the social sphere are there purely because of merit, and those who do not sit in places of power are there because they do not have merit." See here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7406566
I don't think any company believes they have a truly objective system for hiring good people (besides they all want company fit - what does objectively best even mean, is it well defined? Objectively best for what?).
And I severely doubt for example GitHub put the carpet there to justify that they didn't hire some people ("see, we didn't hire you because you were not good enough, ktx bye"). They seem to be more driven by idealism, which would speak for the "we try to hire good people" interpretation.
I suppose they might also refer to open source in general. Again, what other criteria than merit would work in open source? Should sub-par merge requests be accepted out of a sense of fairness?
Sorry, I am really trying to understand...
Btw that carpet article claims women are being kept out of the tech meritocracy. I just want to note that these women probably have perfectly fine other jobs (for example in medicine, law, journalism, whatnot). So they are not really being kept stupid and un-elite.
(Edit: I meant this article http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug#awesm... and this quote: "The tech industry isn’t still predominantly white and male because white men are better at their jobs than everyone else, it’s because many white men have had more opportunities to succeed than their minority and female counterparts." which seems unfounded to me).
Reading the article you linked to (not the carpet article), I have to say one of my criticisms of democracy is also that it exploits the stronger members of society. I guess some middle ground has to be found, but it doesn't seem just to me to demand that people who contribute the most should also be made to pay the most. The issue of incentives is also there (why perform if it only generates more demands?).
According to social justice logic, if you claim you have a meritocracy and your demographic ratios aren't perfectly balanced, then you must not have a meritocracy. I.E. the perfect equality of all human groups is assumed.
Now that she's gone does this mean that GitHub can get that cool carpet back?
http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug#awesm...