Thread by @paraschopra

This #book talks about how meritocracy shouldn’t be the goal of a society.

It’s a controversial idea but arguments that the author makes are worth analysing.

My notes and thoughts in 🧵

1/ The core argument is that meritocracy creates a society of losers and winners.

Winners feel they deserve what they get, but the role of contingency (luck, genetics, background conditions) isn’t acknowledged.

Losers, on the other hand, feel humiliated.

2/ The argument is two fold:

- There’s no such thing as perfect meritocracy

- Even if there is a perfect meritocracy, it isn’t moral to let less meritocratic suffer because merit may not be controllable by an individual

3/ As a concrete example, take getting a degree from a good college.

Not everyone can afford to prepare for good colleges. And even if someone can, if they’re simply not sharp, do they deserve to be left behind?

4/ Meritocracy means the successful feel they deserve what they’ve gotten, and hence are less inclined to share their wealth with their fellow citizens.

This, ultimately, erodes a society,

Such erosion can be seen all across where bipartisan views no longer talk with each other

5/ Meritocracy works at a society level - where jobs are done by the most meritorious people.

But it fails at an individual level - if I’m not meritorious, I’ll suffer badly.

6/ What’s the solution? What does a just society look like?

Author doesn’t give a concrete alternative but talks about ideas such as randomising college admissions (via partial lotteries, to cast a wider net for who gets into a college).

7/ Or taxing consumption but not production.

Taxing economically zero-sum activities such as high frequency trading, while providing extra hourly wage to low meritorious (from economic pov) activities such as teaching.

8/ Overall, I found core ideas refreshing.

But the book is very US centric and was repetitive.

Meritocracy is something I hadn’t questioned before, but thanks to this book, now I do.