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Comment by dgb23 | Hacker News Reader

In my experience it is very subjective and generally contextual what either side of that equation means.

The term meritocracy has often been by people who have a very clear view on what contribution and reward mean and they typically assume a closed and fair system where everyone already agreed on the meaning of those terms and on the rules on how to evaluate those things on a case by case basis.

To be honest I'm just not sure whether it is a useful term at all outside of games, sports and other controlled systems with predefined and agreed upon rules.

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Any sufficiently complex economic system has loopholes, can be gamed, can be subjectively perceived as unfair. This in itself should not disqualify it, since all systems are imperfect.

Perhaps this system does not have a built in mechanism for empathy… that’s a stronger argument against it in my view.

Tenure or background based systems are far less desirable - wouldn’t you agree?

Less desirable for sure.

I think you hit the nail on the head with empathy. Empathy is contextual, subjective and real. It cannot be pinned down with rules, it’s too humane and powerful for that.

Under capitalism everyone decides what to reward, even the poorest people in first world countries make tons of decisions what to spend their money on, that is how we decide merit, if people decide to give you their money you have merit. We try to regulate so it doesn't get abusive but there will always be some holes, but that system is as close to an unbiased merit function we have gotten.

The other good merit function we have is one vote per person, that is how we elect national leaders, this doesn't have some of the abusive loopholes as the capitalist merit function, but instead it has other abusive properties which is why every modern country choose to do a mix of both.

Both of these functions, market value and vote per person, are at least in my eyes pre-defined rules. You have to agree with them under the many circumstances where they apply.

To me the term meritocracy just seems too idealist and it assumes too much in relation to complex and varied systems like economy or politics.

I don't beleive people assume a closed and fair system, but instead find the fairness of the system irrelevant.

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