[michaelpb]

I generally agree with you here, and don't think this article is particularly well researched or argued. I'm no fan of Matty's argumentation in any of his articles in fact... I don't think he "merits" the popularity he has ;)

That said, I don't really think there is any sort of useful distinction between "necessarily wrong" and "impossible to define". That is, I believe many meritocracy-enthusiasts to be "necessarily wrong" since they often imply or casually argue for achieving a meritocratic society, while, as you put it, "a stable, shared view of merit doesn’t really exist". So, seeking something that doesn't exist (like the tooth fairy, or a profitable MLM scam) is necessarily 100% wrong... not 20% wrong, or 50% wrong. All we got is this boring cave :(

So, I guess I welcome any "meritocracy considered harmful" posts, despite who wrote it and how it's written.

[meheleventyone]

Yeah I think the idea of meritocracy is dangerously utopian. It’s beguiling because as a principle it’s succinct to express and hard to argue with on casual acquaintance. Which is why I describe it as not necessarily wrong. A specific enough definition at a narrow enough view might yield meritocratic results but is useless as a general organising principle even though that isn’t easily obvious.

Your single paragraph also holds a much stronger argument that meritocracy is bad than any of those in the article.

Which is a really long way to say I agree.