[elefanten]

Yeah and? In a meritocracy, they wouldn't be given positions of responsibility and power without earning them. So the unearned economic advantage will dwindle within a couple generations unless they can produce something of value.

In no scheme can you regulate away all forms of unearned advantage. The skills, capacities and potential we are born with vary.

People are tremendously motivated by providing for their children. Taking that motivation off the table will drive people to places where they can achieve it.

The long-term, highest-net-value producing system of distributing power / responsibility will be a meritocracy.

[geofft]

First off, merely having money is a position of responsibility and power.

Second, money doesn't "dwindle" on its own. Unless you are actively gambling it away (literally or metaphorically), a large amount of money by itself produces more money of value at a certain baseline rate (by the ability to make broader and individually-riskier investments while managing aggregate risk - tl;dr, "why banks are profitable"), entirely independent of the merit of the person with the money. And even if you were to bury it in the ground like the dude in the parable of the talents, it would only lose out on inflation. It wouldn't rot or evaporate.

Finally, a couple of generations is a long time! Nations rise and fall in less time than that. My grandparents grew up under the British Raj. The whole of the Soviet Union lasted a couple of generations. If your "meritocracy" recognizes merit with latency on the order of a couple of generations, I'm not sure it's an effective meritocracy. If the US Senate had free and fair elections once every generation, replacing one-third of the participants each generation and allowing senators to hand-pick their successors whenever they wanted to retire, would you call that government a democracy?

[elefanten]

My comment followed from the claim about whether meritocracy and inheritance are compatible. I'm addressing the notions in theory rather than in present situational terms in any given country. From that perspective:

1. Disagree. Yes, money can be used to buy power. But it's not power in itself. A strong meritocracy would focus on giving positions of responsibility (auditing/regulating/decision-making type powers) to people who show the merit to perform them well. Money is an advantage, but it is not the power to shape social systems.

2. Rich heirs who put all their wealth into safe investments and sit on it also aren't really getting much out of it. And that money isn't sitting away in a vault, it's a part of the economy. Rich heirs who buy yachts and mansions and hang with celebrities, but lack the merit to contribute anything useful, will burn through (most of) the wealth. It's not just common... it's the default outcome within a few generations.

3. Yes, generations are a long time. But that latency would apply to personal/family wealth rather than decision-making authority.

I'm not a pro-inheritance maximalist. I agree with various forms of taxation on inheritance. But there is value is allowing people to be motivated by their family's future. Inheritance is not inherently at odds with meritocratic assignment of political power.

[geofft]

1. I'm not sure I follow your distinction between "can be used to buy power" and "power in itself." Does a general who can order a thousand fighter jets to bomb a target, but who does not fly any planes himself, have no power? Does a high court justice who can order that people be imprisoned or freed, but who does not have any handcuffs or jail keys herself, have no power? Why do you count auditing and regulating (telling people what to do, but not doing it) as power, but not buying and contracting? And why is the ability to decide what the market wants (e.g., whether the market prefers goods "Made in the USA" or "Made in China," or whether the market wants to boycott and divest from Israel, or whether the market wants to open business and have sporting events in North Carolina) not a form of decision-making authority?

2. When you put your money in safe investments and sit on it, you get the interest out of it, which is hardly "not really getting much out of it!" Let's say you can get a 2% annual return by just not being actively bad with your money. If you have, say, a million dollars, then you can get $20K/year, forever, doing nothing - which is higher than the US minimum wage. It's not a lot of money to a rich person, but it's the difference between working and not working. And a net worth of a million dollars is hardly yachts-and-mansions levels of rich - it appears to be roughly the 90th percentile for net worth in the US, i.e,. one in ten people have access to this level of wealth. (Yes, I'm looking at real data from a real country, because if your system only works in theory, it doesn't work.)

And, of course, it's the difference between being motivated to work and not being motivated to work. You are correct that there's value in allowing people to be motivated to work - inheritance destroys that!

[elefanten]

1. My use of "power" was about political power. The political can regulate the economic. If you have competent governance, you can regulate attempts to use raw purchasing power as a tool to shape politics.

2. It's not about the unfair value that heirs get. It's about whether that would significantly distort the function of meritocracy. Yes, it's unfair that someone might get a 20k annual dividend, just like it's unfair that some people are born stunningly gorgeous or incredibly genius. As long as wealth tends to dwindle, these marginal inequities would not disrupt a functioning meritocracy.

On the final bit, the question becomes whether the motivation to provide for one's kids is greater than the demotivation of inheritance. I think the former is greater. Especially in people who might have a shot in creating a fortune.

Which raises another point -- one focused on real data rather than theory. Do you think it'd be a good move for a country to significantly clamp down on inheritance on its own? What impact would that have on the country's ability to attract and retain top talent?

[mcguire]

"Yes, money can be used to buy power. But it's not power in itself."

Try convincing someone who has to work multiple jobs to support themselves and their family of that.

"A strong meritocracy would focus on giving positions of responsibility (auditing/regulating/decision-making type powers) to people who show the merit to perform them well. Money is an advantage, but it is not the power to shape social systems."

A "strong meritocracy" has about as much chance of existing as a non-corrupt totalitarian or communist system.

[MisterBastahrd]

The motivations of the average person are not aligned with efficiency.

[elefanten]

But the motivations of those shaping the structure and systems of civilization should be.

[MisterBastahrd]

Efficiency for efficiency's sake isn't congruent with a free society.