| There was a blog post here recently that I can't find. It spoke about how someone starting from the bottom of the labor pool and getting promotions to middle management. The blog made the analogy that he'd climbed a mountain from the base to a certain height. In another example, there's another person born with access to wealth, connections, and high-quality education. This one can reach the peak much more easily because he started higher on the mountain, but in both examples, the same amount of 'distance' was covered. The second example could easily find a job as middle management and just coast through life. That's not really impressive given his starting conditions. He hasn't really moved much on the mountain if he decides to do this (maybe even going backwards). In a meritocracy, the praise for this absolute progress is lost because the goal posts on the mountain are more-or-less sticky, slowly pushed higher as technology and social advances moves us towards bigger accomplishments. Also, the slope of the mountain is steeper when it's closer to the earth, which is often shaped by the powerful. No one will likely give you a higher salary despite that you struggled through awful jobs, tight budgets, and many other inconveniences of not having wealth. They don't care how you acquired the 'skills' you have, as long as you have them. This is fairly obvious stuff, but a meritocracy that ignores this other dimension of merit really irks me. America in particular (only because I live here) is a society that really doesn't reward this other dimension of effort but continues to use the feel-good narrative of hard work and long hours for whatever purposes. Of course I'd have a completely different view on American meritocracy if we were in a real post-scarcity world. |