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Also: merit is not one-dimensional. Which merit is being measured? Merit at what?

I've noted for a while that a significant fraction of those successful in business, especially in certain sectors, are basically glorified street hustlers. They're very good at rapidly building social networks, smoke and mirrors, and shell games that create the illusion of value. The game they play could be called "lie, leverage, flip."

Is this the merit that we want?

I would argue that all societies are meritocracies for some value of "merit." Defining merit in any objective sense is not easy. In fact, it's probably capital-H Hard and reduces to the same effectively-infinite-dimensional search problem solved by evolution itself.

I think meritocracy is a great example of a simple idea that is incredibly appealing but wrong in a way that creates pathologies. Economics and biology are just chock full of that stuff.

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I've noted for a while that a significant fraction of those successful in business, especially in certain sectors, are basically glorified street hustlers.

Exactly. The Economist article lost me at the point where it said this:

The top 1% have seen their incomes soar because of the premium that a globalised high-tech economy places on brainy people.

No, the top 1% have seen their incomes soar because they have been allowed to game the system in order to siphon wealth from other people's pockets into their own. Exhibit A: Wall Street investment banks.

The top level comment mentioned extreme sacrifice as a way to move to the 95th percentile. I argue that investment bankers also make extreme sacrifice to stay where they are, in the form of 80 hour weeks, horrible family life, etc.

Anger and jealousy toward the "1%" is a dangerous road for a country to go down. Besides, without investment banks and private equity firms, an essential part of the economy -- namely, buying and selling companies -- would be missing and we would be worse off.

The place where you should direct your ire is toward corrupt government policymakers who allow corporate interests to override the basis of our civil society, which is equal protection under the law. Corporations do not want free markets; they want government-sponsored monopolies. We the people should hold our government responsible for succumbing to corporate special interests instead of blaming the companies once they are granted such privilege.

You cannot simply blame the government policymakers. Civil servants make the policies based on Congressional direction. Congress develops laws due to public pressure which is often led by lobby efforts. Who funds the the lobbyists?

The entire society is guilty for the current state of economic affairs as civil servants don't stand up to Congress, Congress wants to get re-elected, the public is easily distracted, and the 1% or .001% fund the lobbies.

I argue that investment bankers also make extreme sacrifice to stay where they are, in the form of 80 hour weeks, horrible family life, etc.

I wasn't claiming investment bankers don't make sacrifices. I was claiming that they don't create wealth; they just siphon it from other people's pockets into their own. The fact that they work 80 hour weeks so they can siphon more wealth doesn't make it right.

without investment banks and private equity firms, an essential part of the economy -- namely, buying and selling companies -- would be missing and we would be worse off.

Investment banks do make money on mergers and acquisitions, but that's not where they make most of it. Most of it is made by finding suckers to take the wrong end of zero sum trades.

Corporations do not want free markets; they want government-sponsored monopolies.

Quite true; they want them so much that they are willing to pay good money for them.

We the people should hold our government responsible for succumbing to corporate special interests instead of blaming the companies once they are granted such privilege.

I disagree; we should blame both. The corporations for buying government favors, and the government for allowing them to be for sale.

> Exhibit A: Wall Street investment banks.

Then you're thinking of the top 0.01%.

The people right at the 99th percentile are still considered peons by Wall Street investment banking standards. And the kind of money that puts you at 1% (about $500k annually for a household) isn't enough to get you special access to powerful politicians. That costs a lot more.

I agree with you that we have a corrupt elite. But I prefer we use realistic statistics in defining them. The people right at the 99th percentile are not the problem.

People use "1 percent" as a euphemism for the global elite because (a) it's fewer symbols, and (b) it's not natural for us to think of such low proportions (e.g. 0.005%).

You are absolutely right, by the way. The enemies are the Davos Men, not the people who worked their asses off to get a few million.

Someone with ten million in the bank is a peasant in a nice suit to the people you're talking about.

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