[bingobangobongo]

Whether or not the term "meritocracy" is thrown around as propaganda is a separate issue from whether or not we should want to live in a meritocracy, which is what the article was about. In fact, most people don't want to live a pure meritocracy, as that would for example preclude the freedom to give gifts to others (as gifts are by definition unearned).

I think one property that our economy ought have as we head into a future of machines increasingly displacing human workers is this: If all human work in the economy stopped, wealth should converge to an approximately fair distribution, preferably within a small number of lifetimes.

[svachalek]

And in a world without work, what is "fair"? It will almost certainly go to those who own the machines.

[bingobangobongo]

I almost wrote "uniform", but that seemed simplistic since it didn't take into account factors like age, number of children, etc. But if the majority of the wealth goes to the few owners of the machines, then the economy certainly doesn't have the property I'm talking about.