Do you believe in meritocracy? Why or why not?
This is the definition I am using:
a system, organization, or society in which people are chosen and moved into positions of success, power, and influence on the basis of their demonstrated abilities and merit.
Yes, but it doesn't last for long. It just takes a few bad apples on top for the system to quickly go corrupt, which is why the powers on top need to constantly fear being changed by the people
What do you mean by doesn't last long? Also if the society was a complete meritocracy what accountability would the people have?
Well, human judgement is not perfect, and eventually a snake would be able to climb the ranks and corrupt the whole system.
This is why democracy is the only system that can allow for “constant revolution” and if the current system is broken or corrupt, it’s the only way that allows for a consistent peaceful transfer of power. It is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but as Churchill once said “ Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…”
And for when the people in charge decide they’re not going to hand over their power despite being elected out, we have rules about it not being allowed to clear out people’s weapons.
Basically we do our best to ensure there are no circumstances where those in charge get to ignore those they’re ruling over. It’s a way of solving the agency problem given humans’ tendency to ignore the rules when they want to.
Another way to put it is that a politician might decide “oh this system of democracy isn’t going to keep me in power, so I’ll just step outside of it to the world of anything goes” and then an armed populace can say “nope, we’ve got moves there too, and they’re way worse for you than getting voted out”.
It makes the attractiveness of that step outside the system go way down.
“No! You can’t change me!”
“Yes we can”
::: changes him :::
“Well, I guess that does feel better”
“Told you”
Meritocracy just means you're rewarded proportionally to your contribution. It doesn't necessarily mean you're rewarded with authority over anyone.
Actually the “cracy” suffix does refer specifically to the distribution of authority. Democracy is a system in which people decide; not just one in which people do well. Aristocracy is where those people are the deciders, not just where they’re the most wealthy.
A fair point. I guess I'm used to it being used incorrectly then.
It's a good idea in theory, but there's a few problems:
Regarding wealth, it doesn’t have to with a heavy enough estate tax, AKA anti-aristocracy tax.
No.
Who gets to determine what counts as merit? If it's the people with merit already, it's trivial to corrupt such a system. Think billionares.
And then, is everyone even given the opportunity to display their merit and if they are, is their merit recognised? I'm concerned esp. about people perceived by society to have inherently less merit. Think disabled people, old people, young people, women, people of colour, queer folks, etc.
And then, how does the system ensure that merit wasn't faked or even just exaggerated, how does it investigate and how does it respond? Does a sufficient amount of merit allow someone to cover up such things? If implemented, can and would this investigation power be used to punish people with low merit, those that are the most vulnereable?
And then, why do people that are not constantly being useful to the system deserve less and esp. if meritocracy is the only system in place, do some people not deserve to live at all? Here I'm talking about people that want to have a hobby or two or want to spend time with their friends and family, basically anything that doesn't give merit. I'm also talking about people that can't or don't want to be useful to society.
Beyond all this, meritocracy aims to replace the people's purpose in life with "being useful". And that's just a really miserable mindset to live with, where you feel guilt if you're not being useful all the time, where you constantly have thoughts like "am I good enough" or "am I trying hard enough".
I totally agree.
IMO the notion of merit is an illusion. It hides the assumption that people can be ranked and compared, but do we truly want to live in such a society?
Also, is that even feasible?
It's impossible to objectively compare humans of similar "skill level". For example, think of Plato and Aristotle, they have been dead for thousands of years and their work has been studied but millions of not billions of people, yet people still argue who was the best philosopher of the two. How can we have a meritocracy if we cannot evaluate merit? You may be able to distinguish experts from beginners for a certain skill, but, when considering roles of influence/power, there are multiple skills and attributes to be considered, and the same principle applies.
It's easier to cheat a merit metric than to evaluate it. Any algorithm that makes a decision based on merit will need to either evaluate or compare it. Both are going to depend on the presence of absence of features that once known to a cheater they will be able to fake them. That makes evaluation and cheating a competing game, where the evaluator and the cheater contiously adapt to one another, with the cheater being much able to adapt much faster.
Any meritocracy will have to be open about it's evaluation process. If it's not participants with merit cannot know how to demonstrate it and the process is prune to corruption.
Personally, I believe making decisions based on trust is much better. It's hard to build trust and it cannot be cheated. Of course, cheater may try to influence decision makers with bribes or blackmail. But, once this is found trust is destroyed and they get rejected.
I do. I just had a surgery and I’m very glad we have ranking and comparisons, and rejection of those who don’t rank and compare well, from the pool of available surgeons.
There would be no feeling of safety in that surgical theater, as I’m going under, if I thought that anyone was operating on the assumption that surgeons cannot be ranked in terms of merit. That would scare the shit out of me.
This is one of the reasons a free market is important. The collective feedback of a lot of customers is a better signal for real merit than a boss’s evaluation. A free market is a place where a person who fails to kiss enough ass to get good ratings from their boss can instead prove directly to those being served that they can help.
The “free market” conditions for this particular avenue of choice is a situation where an individual can go into business for themselves without too much artificial hassle. Like yes, maybe you’ll need a car for your own pizza delivery business, so there’s some startup cost, but at least you don’t need a special pizza delivery tag from the government, which can only be gained by … you guessed it … kissing more ass.
As an autistic, weird person who can get things done well but who always has personality conflicts with bosses, I feel safer in a place with something resembling the freedom to engage directly with customers, to be judged by the market instead of by a boss.
I often fail at jobs. But I often succeed when out on my own. Whenever someone proposes adding more permission slips to the process of starting a business, it makes me feel afraid, because being in business for myself is how I’ve survived.
I believe in the theory of a meritocracy, I even think it could work.
I don't believe it exists anywhere in the world in practice where power and money are at play.
For anyone interested, Wikipedia provides some arguments against meritocracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_meritocracy
SO LONG AS IT IS ACTUAL MERITOCRACY,
and not just privilege's gaslighting about it ( via making-certain that the poorest have inferior-nutrition, inferior-air-quality, worse-pollution, inferior-education, inferior-healthcare, etc ),
then yes, I hold it is The Proper Way.
However, it REQUIRES a truly-level playing-field, and not a 2-tiered "level" playing-field.
The Scandinavian system of ONLY public-schooling, so there is only 1 tier of education-quality, is a required component.
Student nutrition needs to be guaranteed.
Healthcare needs to work properly, for all.
Livingwage needs to be for all full-time work, and companies that try to hire only part-time for the real-work, have to have the profit-benefit of such hamstringing-of-many-lives cut from them all, permanently.
Fairness requries careful systematic, & openly-honest enforcement, because the DarkHexad: narcissism/machiavellianism/sociopathy-psychopathy/nihilism/sadism/systemic-dishonesty ALWAYS seeks to enforce abusive-exploitation, and it is underhandedly aggressive, and natural in our human nature.
Not mitigating it == accommodating it.
Salut, Namaste, & Kaizen, eh?
_ /\ _
But what is merit exactly? Who decides the criteria we use to measure it?
As a general rule, yes. People who are able to better perform a task should be preferentially allocated towards those tasks. That being said, I think this should be a guiding rule, not a law upon which a society is built.
For one, there should be some accounting for personal preference. No one should be forced to do something by society just because they're adept at something. I think there is also space within the acceptable performance level of a society for initiatives to relax a meritocracy to some degree to help account for/make up for socioeconomic influences and historical/ongoing systemic discrimination. Meritocracy's also have to make sure they avoid the application of standardized evaluations at a young age completely determining an individual's future career prospects. Lastly, and I think this is one of common meritocracy retorhic's biggest flaws, a person's intrinsic value and overall value to society is not determined by their contributions to STEM fields and finance, which is where I think a lot of people who advocate for a more meritocracy-based society stand.
Why do you think this is?
If I was guessing, in general, I think people who advocate for a pure meritocracy in the USA feel the world should be evaluated in more black and white, objective terms. The financial impact and analytic nature of STEM and finance make it much easier to stratify practitioners "objectively" in comparison to finding, for instance, the "best" photographer. I think there is also a subset of US culture that thinks that STEM is the only "real" academic group of fields worth pursuing, and knowledge in liberal arts is pointless -> not contributing to society -> not a meaningful part of the meritocracy. But I'm no expert.
Yeah I agree with this quite a bit.
I don't think the idea of meritocracy only lives in the U.S.
I didn't say it did, but I am a citizen of the USA and the vast majority of my cultural experience and knowledge, and therefore what I can intelligently comment on, are centered on the US.
That's fair.
Just to make it clear the definition that I used does not talk about choosing people for tasks they are suited for, but rather putting them in positions of power, success, and influence.
Well you need to clarify further then. Are you saying we should make the best scientist the president, or the person with the most aptitude for politics and rule to be president? I don't see how this is functionally different than what I said.
Well the way I interpret it is that people who demonstrate their ability are put into a position where they are rewarded more relative to their peers and/or have control over what their peers do.
So for example if I was a engineer and based on some metric was considered highly valuable then I would be paid more than other engineers and I would be put into a position where I can give other engineers directions on what needs to be done.
Then no, I don't agree with this specific implementation of the system, at least the second half. I do think more productive/effective workers should be compensated more. But being a good engineer does not make you a good manager, and the issues associated with promoting an excelling worker into management (a job requiring a substantially different skill set) are so common there's a name for their inevitable failure, The Peter Principle
I don't think anyone who views contributions in STEM fields as the most valuable to society has any respect for finance.
All of my encounters with individuals who feel liberal arts are useless and STEM is the way seem to, at their core, feel that way because of earning potential, and I've never heard one of them bash Econ/finance/investment as a career path. But 🤷♂️
You were saying a group of people believe that value as a person is determined by their contributions to STEM fields and finance.
Now you're saying that this group of people believe that value as a person is determined by earnings potential. Those are not the same things.
Like eugenics, it's just another way for racists to push their racism under the guise of "science". It's not "corruptible", it comes pre-corrupted.
Why would merit be a dog whistle for racism? Couldn’t the non-racists just be like “uh nope we’re considering merit here not race” when a racist tries to do that?
Every 'ocracy' is some kind of meritocracy. It's just a matter of what the merit is and how it's measured. They all suck because manipulators break them all.
Aristocracy says people who are in power are there because their fathers did too.
Which they think is some kind of merit, and it's not really too outlandish. There's a pretty good chance that you're awesome if your dad is awesome.
Institution by natural selection
Sounds right until you realize the system invalidates itself by making selection unnatural. 🤣
Which is the basis of their merit, in an aristocratic system.
The word was coined as satire. Brain-dead
liberalscentrists took it seriously and, here we are.Down with meritocracy
Edited because too many people don't know what liberal means.
DiCtIoNaRiEs aRe DeScRiPtiVe
No one single "-ocracy" applied exclusively can result in a well functioning society.
IMHO, you need bits from multiple different approaches blended together to get closer to a society that works well for the majority of people.
No. Meritocracy is a sham - it is a nice shield to demean and belittle others below you. Meritocracy overlooks several factors, like for example, the economic and social status of an individual. Meritocracy is a justification for Nazi-like ideology with respect to how deeply it is rooted in racism and blood supremacy. One fine example is how some radical and orthodox upper castes in India justifying their reason for being successful as not being privileged, but because they're simply the chosen people.
That's too vague a definition. Like, if person A is an accomplished athlete, the best basketball player ever, I do not think his position of power or success should be, say, president. I think this is actually a very dangerous mindset derived from the capitalistic notion that success determines your--I'll call it value. If you're successful, you must be smart; If you're smart, you can be anything, even the president. Success is equal to wealth in these talking circles, and it sort of ends up as a backwards meritocracy. You gain merit measured by your success (wealth) instead of the other way around
But if you define it as a place in which positions of authority are given to people who have proven themselves knowledgeable and capable in the field in which the position of authority is being granted, I do believe in it in principle. I say that because principle and practice are rarely the same in politics and sociology. There are countless other factors that will impact your "success" that are not actually based on your expertise in the field. Better people have designed public transport, electric cars, social media, and spaceships than Elon Musk, yet the man sits in a position of tremendous influence. In a just meritocracy, we would never have heard his name
Which brings about the point that we have certain ideas as a culture (or maybe system) that awards some merits disproportionately more than others. Some will say his merit is in being a ruthless business man. He's good at that, I guess, so he should be the leader of the company. His "merit" of being a bad human being is being disproportionately rewarded compared to the merit of the scientists that actually design his spaceships, and the engineers that make them work. Meritocracy only really works in a closed system. The most capable archaeologist will be the head of the expedition. If you let the ideas go beyond that, and start comparing apples to oranges, you start seeing instead a system's idea of what's important, and by extension that of the society built in that system
There's a lot of good points here. I think even "better candidates" like a veterinarian or a variety of scientists may not even be a full "solution" to the systems issues due to people having the capability to still be bad despite being good at something. I mean just how many anti-vax scientists came out after 2020.
On the other hand, with stronger meritocracy maybe being genuinely incorrect would disqualify you and we wouldn't be in a position where you can spew complete lies and still be seen as a worthwhile candidate. But that of course would mean that the meritocracy has positive values, which isn't necessarily a guarantee because as you said, man that guy sure is good at being bad... Let's elect him!
In theory it's how things should work (put the most competent person willing to do the job in the position), in practice it would again lead to even more white men (disclaimer: I'm one) in better positions because of the advantages they tend to have growing up just from their skin colour and sex.
The only way a meritocracy works is if everyone starts with the same possibilities in life and even then, as time pass you still end up with a system where a person that was at the top when they were young will tend to always be at the top since they always get the best opportunities.
Depends what you mean by "believe in". Could it work? Sure, why not. Do we live in one? Hell fuck no.
I believe in a theoretical meritocracy but I think there are some pitfalls. We have a market that's very efficient at rewarding incredibly unproductive people. The correlation between money and skill in the modern world just... isn't. So we'd really need a better evaluation system... if we had that I think it'd be achievable.
Love the idea, though.
I agree, there would have to be measures in place to prevent the "promote to the level of incompetence" style of meritocracy that is prevalent already. There needs to be a system of recognizing that the person in any given position has the skills and abilities that make them awesome at that specific job, and rewarding them appropriately without requiring them to justify it by taking on tasks that they're not suited for.
The idea that workers should always be gunning for a promotion is one of the worst parts of what people think a meritocracy is. But how else do you determine how much they should be paid?
Hell, I only consented to management because the company stopped listening to frontline developers. We've got a serious problem in the west with title fixation.
I think that when we do things we should generally listen to the person who best understands how to do it.
I don’t think that your position in life should be determined by it
Why not? The people most qualified should have the positions. The amount of qualified people and said positions probably don't always match and people may not want the jobs they qualify for though, But I think it's an ideal to strive for.
This is a copy of a reply to @godzillabacter@lemmy.world :
Just to make it clear the definition that I used does not talk about choosing people for tasks they are suited for, but rather putting them in positions of power, success, and influence.
What's the difference? The people most deserving of power, success, and influence would be the most qualified to handle it.
Ok, I just wanted to make sure if that is what you were saying.
Yes, but being good at something does not necessarily correlate to being good at managing others doing that thing.
This is especially pronounced in sales, where good salespeople get promoted to management, before immediately discovering that it requires a totally different skillset and they've basically changed fields entirely.
Managing people is "something.". It's a skill. In an ideal meritocracy, managers would be good at managing.
Halo effect
I feel like a true meritocracy would be a system kind of like Plato's republic where children are separated from their parents as early as possible and are all raised from the exact same level, so the only thing that sets them apart will be individual talent (their merit). If not this, then the wealth, status and connections of your family will influence your opportunities, which runs counter to meritocracy.
Safe to say it's not a system I'd want to live in.
It's easily manipulated. We already have barrier to entry in several professions via required degrees and certifications. Those degrees and certifications require significant time and resources to attain. They can also be skewed to certain demographic a la old school SAT exams.
My own personal experience is the CPA exam. Passing it shows me nothing of one's accounting abilities. I've seen people who pass it and I wonder how they tie their shoelaces in the morning without injuring themselves. I've seen others who haven't passed it but are brilliant accountants.
All that exam tells me is that a person had resources to not work for six to nine months so they could study and pass the exam. That's it.
But without it, you're just not gonna go very far in the industry at all.
Then the AICPA keeps making the exam more difficult and whines that there's a shortage of young talent.
So what "merit" are we going to measure in this hypothetical system?
I'm confused about the definition. They are moved? Forcefully if needed, or they are offered the position? Also what kind of position are they moved to you mean? Like the person best in the world in welding, they will atrificially be placed in a position of influece? Influece over what, policy? Culture? Or they will be the boss of other welders? How is the demostrated ability measured? Do people take exams in like welding to compete on who is better than someone else? If so, is the test the only thing that matters? If the best welder in the world is also a complete asshole, they still get the position of power? If not, where is the trade-off on how good a welder do you have to be to be a certain amount of asshole?
Generally yes with two huge caveats.
First, It has been widely demonstrated that diverse teams are more productive and produce higher quality products than homogeneous teams.
Second, selection criteria is heavily biased towards homogeneous teams and has also been demonstrated to stifle innovation.
Desire/inspiration is nearly as important as capability and non-optimal teams (according to most, if not all selection criteria) will consistently outperform "optimal" teams in any tasks that require innovation.
There is a meritocratic aspect to reality. There are also meritocratic aspects to capitalism. So it's partly real, for sure.
A real meritocracy would nurture merit. In terms of policy that would manifest as socialist policies that create a level playing field.
Hiring based on identity is fiercely anti-meritocratic. Expensive degrees and high interest student loans are also anti-meritocratic.
Peeps proposing lots of good reasons against, but I'll just say: is a system where a reality show host can threaten our democracy really better?
I'm pretty sure the US IS considered meritocratic. There are just countless other factors that also impact your ability to succeed
That system is widely believed to be a meritocracy.
In theory? Yes. But it not realistic. In reality being good at your job is less important than being good at networking and pleasant to be around when you're at work.
The problem is the powerful make the rules, but don't abide by them. What starts off as a meritocracy quickly turns into this growing chasm between the haves and the have-nots. Like we have now.
I'm very wary of the term because it could only be measured correctly if everyone started from the same conditions. People with more resources have it easier to go up.
The issue will always be reality. In theory, meritocracy and even geniocracy sounds promosing but so does our current system.
The reality is that incompetent or malicious people will always find ways to corrupt the idea.
At this point, I‘m pretty sure the only way to go forward is to think in new ways. Maybe general AI will work, or anarchy (more like anarcho communist probably).
We tried and broke everything:
The real problem imo is that a few people just cant make decisions for the masses over an extended time. Its too much power and responsibility.
I‘m pretty sure a more direct democracy represents this day and age more since the majority sees how our world goes to shit.
making it, by definition, not communism.
https://medium.com/international-workers-press/misconceptions-about-communism-2e366f1ef51f
Well, again theory vs reality.
Every iteration of communism so far was an absolute nightmare, made by the people for the people.
I agree that most theories are great if taken seriously but I dont see how we keep incompetence and malice from corrupting it.
My logic says weed out malice and educate the incompetent but no idea how to do this.
The SU was pretty great until it came apart due to outside interference and ultimately illegally dissolved. People like to shit-talk the censorship (and to be fair under most circumstances I would be against it as well) but things didn't get bad until they started loosening up on it; once the citizens had no protection from the lies specifically created to destabilize their society it all came crumbling down.
Also China for all of its flaws is fucking killing it right now. They're genuinely on the path to full blown communism, with their strategy being to build up as much power as they can while they wait for the US empire to collapse. Once they're out of the picture, expect huge moves.
I've come to a similar conclusion, however I still have some hold ups on how anarchism currently being implemented across the world.
It still relies on organizers and extra attention being diverted to certain individuals who give an agenda for what needs to be done next. This allows co-opting these movements to be a lot easier than if we could work past that.
If you think there is someone implementing anarchism around the world, you have completely misunderstood anarchism.
It's like when the alt right tried framing antifa as an organisation.
The whole point of anarchism is that you do what your community needs you to do, and let other communities do the same.
Yeah I agree that should be the ideal however, like you have said, it hasn't ever really been implemented yet.
There are a bunch of groups around the world that follow similar anarchist principles, like Rojava, Zapatistas, or even Temporary autonomous zones, but all of them have some unofficial/hidden/weak form of organizer that can be targeted by people with the right resources.
My point being that since systems tend to sustain themselves if we don't start building systems that can function without the need of an organizer or something of a similar sort then there will still be that place where the power can be misused.
Exactly. If anarchy (or a real, local, direct democracy to be precise) was to be born, it would take a long time to prepare. People need to be educated enough to lead their own lives and make decisions for themselves and their peers. Thats something that hasnt happened for centuries. People are born into worshipping hierarchy.
The most crucial thing is education in my book. Even the last person living under a rock should be able to get quality education without any cost or strings attached.
A direct democracy can be corrupted via social engineering, see brexit.
I‘m not saying direct democracy cant be broken but britain isnt a direct democracy. Its like giving someone a bike who drove a car all their lives. They crash and hurt themselves and someone says „look! Bikes are dangerous!“
There are no direct (or mostly direct) democracies in the world afaik. Feel free to prove otherwise.
I believe Switzerland has direct democracy, no?
In part, but not fully. They still have full time reprenstative offices. Direct democracy would get along without those afaik.
That makes sense
Thanks. I‘m glad I explained it ok. :) have a good one.
Brexit happened because the bri'ish are all a bunch of subhuman fascists. They all deep down wanted brexit because they hated foreigners more than they cared for themselves. All trolls had to do was bring that to the surface and give them the chance to actually act upon it.
And they are rather smelly
And they eat beans on toast
[didn't you have beans on toast like a week ago] (shut up, mom that doesn't count)
Nobody is able to speak for other people. This just doesnt work.
Its just laziness if people prefer to have others speak for themselves.
Anarchy is the only system where nobody can hide because "it was not their decision" and where nobody has the right to "decide for other people".
I mean, are you good at gifts? If you dont know what a person wants to get as gifts, how do you want to know exactly what decisions they would make?
Don't organisations already follow this? Atleast for their workers.
People getting into a public or private job have to show that they are eligible.
Regarding meritocracy at level of society:
I think it's going to be difficult in reality.
In the case of an organisation, the leaders/owners of the org can choose workers with merit. But the owners themselves are not appraised, right? Unless they are in some co-operative org or so.
Perfect meritocracy seems very difficult to implement for the whole of society.
I think democracy(which gives due importance to scientific temper and obviously human life) is a decent enough system. We can iterate on it to bring up the merit in the society and its people as a whole
Do I believe it could work? Maybe.
Do I believe it's been seriously tried to a significant degree? Nah.
"Wherever you go, there you are" also applies to the human condition and any kind of whatever-cracy. At the end of the day, people are people and a lot of people suck, there's no fix for that.
I don't think this would ever be achievable. It also sounds like a broader form of technocracy (to my very much unqualified brain)
Absolutely not. Demographic data shows it's shit, income distribution data is best explained by a random walk process (neat graphic explainer here), and all the data on startups and investing show that there's no free lunch; capitalism actually does ensure everything gives the same steady return on average.
Every rich person won some sort of lottery. Even the bona-fide engineers are never the only ones that could have invented whatever thing - as technical person myself.
Wildly untenable concept in modern society...
I'm sure it would work great in a video game or something, but In the real world, this shit goes crony AF guaranteed.
We don't measure aptitude or ability in our society, we absolutely suck at it. A person's ability is measured by what pedigree they purchased at degrees R us, or worse, by how articulate and verbose they were when typing a resume. Occasionally, ability is measured by how well someone likes a person even...
Competence is valued in a very select few enterprises. Trades, IT, and at higher echelons, math nerds... That's about it...
No.
“American Dream,” was built on belief where workplaces are meritocratic environments where workers, regardless of their background, can, on merit and abilities overcome any deprived situation they may find themselves in and rise above.
Just like communism when the Wall fell, I think it's safe to say this ideology, when tried and tested, has been proven a total and complete failure.
The "American dream" was based on a much earlier (and just as false and terrible) idea of manifest destiny.
Also, communism has never been achieved for it to have failed:
https://medium.com/international-workers-press/misconceptions-about-communism-2e366f1ef51f
For practical purposes it failed. If every attempt to achieve it failed then it's just a failure.
If you follow the subjective "it was never really achieved for it to fail" logic then anyone can claim nothing ever fails.
Meritocracy and the American dream didn't fail, we just never achieved it for it to fail then?
Meritocracy is a dogwhistle white supremacists created to justify their position of power over people of color.
No.
Currently: "meritocracy" has nothing to do with "merit" and more to do with eugenics, it's just a word to make white-supremacist-patriarchal-cis-heteronormative-abled-supremacist bigotry sound less terrible than it is.
In general: because hierarchy is bad for society, since someone always ends up at the artificial "bottom" and treated badly or at the very least as less worthy or deserving (of life, dignity, freedom, access, and so on). The only reason anyone would want/believe in a "meritocracy" is because it makes them feel superior to others.