[real-v]

This reminds me a little bit about one of my favorite philosophers, Alain de Botton. Sometimes, he discusses meritocracy and meritocratic societies.

Basically, in a meritocratic society, such as the US, people tend to believe everyone's lot in life is deserved; luck is not considered a big factor. This creates a problem where the poor believe the rich made it through their hard work, while the rich believe that poor people deserve to be poor because they are lazy or stupid. People are where they are because they deserved to be there.

I used to place a high value in the concept of a meritocratic society, but experience is convincing me that the lack of compassion that such societies experience is not worth trade off.