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Meritocracy - Wikiquote

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href="/wiki/File:U.S._economic_variables_related_to_the_distribution_of_wealth_and_income.png" class="mw-file-description"><img src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/U.S._economic_variables_related_to_the_distribution_of_wealth_and_income.png/220px-U.S._economic_variables_related_to_the_distribution_of_wealth_and_income.png" decoding="async" width="220" height="116" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/U.S._economic_variables_related_to_the_distribution_of_wealth_and_income.png/330px-U.S._economic_variables_related_to_the_distribution_of_wealth_and_income.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/U.S._economic_variables_related_to_the_distribution_of_wealth_and_income.png/440px-U.S._economic_variables_related_to_the_distribution_of_wealth_and_income.png 2x" data-file-width="1412" data-file-height="746" /></a><figcaption>When the rate of return on <a href="/wiki/Capital" title="Capital">capital</a> exceeds the rate of growth of output and income, as it did in the nineteenth century and seems quite likely to do again in the twenty-first, <a href="/wiki/Capitalism" title="Capitalism">capitalism</a> automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which <a href="/wiki/Democracy" title="Democracy">democratic</a> societies are based. ~ <a href="/wiki/Thomas_Piketty" title="Thomas Piketty">Thomas Piketty</a></figcaption></figure> <p><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy" class="extiw" title="w:Meritocracy">Meritocracy</a></b> is a political system in which power is vested in individuals according to merit. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Quotes">Quotes</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Meritocracy&amp;action=edit&amp;section=1" title="Edit section: Quotes"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li><b>The wise man must not be ordered but must order, and he must not obey another, but the less wise must obey him.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Aristotle" title="Aristotle">Aristotle</a>, <i>Metaphysics</i> 982a17, <i>Complete Works</i>, vol. 2, p. 1554</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Everyone knows how compromised the idea of bureaucracy as a meritocratic system is. The first criterion of loyalty to any organization is therefore complicity. Career advancement is not based on merit but on a willingness to play along with the fiction that career advancement is based on merit, or with the fiction that rules and regulations apply to everyone equally, when in fact they are often deployed as an instrument of arbitrary personal power. ... As whole societies have come to represent themselves as giant credentialized meritocracies, rather than as systems of predatory extraction, we bustle about, trying to curry favor by pretending we actually believe it to be true. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/David_Graeber" title="David Graeber">David Graeber</a>, <i>The Utopia of Rules</i> (2015)</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Transforming hereditary privilege into ‘merit,’ the existing system of educational selection, with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Three_(colleges)" class="extiw" title="w:Big Three (colleges)">Big Three</a> &#91;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University" class="extiw" title="w:Harvard University">Harvard</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_University" class="extiw" title="w:Princeton University">Princeton</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yale_University" class="extiw" title="w:Yale University">Yale</a>&#93; as its capstone, provides the appearance if not the substance of equality of opportunity. In so doing, it legitimates the established order as one that rewards ability over the prerogatives of birth. The problem with a ‘meritocracy,’ then, is not only that its ideals are routinely violated (though that is true), but also that it veils the power relations beneath it. For the definition of ‘merit,’ including the one that now prevails in America’s leading universities, always bears the imprint of the distribution of power in the larger society. Those who are able to define ‘merit’ will almost invariably possess more of it, and those with greater resources—cultural, economic and social—will generally be able to ensure that the educational system will deem their children more meritorious. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Jerome_Karabel" title="Jerome Karabel">Jerome Karabel</a>, <i>The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton</i> (Houghton Mifflin: 2005), pp. 549-550</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>When the rate of return on <a href="/wiki/Capital" title="Capital">capital</a> exceeds the rate of growth of output and income, as it did in the nineteenth century and seems quite likely to do again in the twenty-first, <a href="/wiki/Capitalism" title="Capitalism">capitalism</a> automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which <a href="/wiki/Democracy" title="Democracy">democratic</a> societies are based. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Thomas_Piketty" title="Thomas Piketty">Thomas Piketty</a>, <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century" class="extiw" title="w:Capital in the Twenty-First Century">Capital in the Twenty-First Century</a></i> (2013), p. 1</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>That, precisely, is the deadliness of second-handers. They have no concern for facts, ideas, work. They’re concerned only with people. They don’t ask: ‘Is this true?’ They ask: ‘Is this what others think is true?’ Not to judge, but to repeat. Not to do, but to give the impression of doing. Not creation, but show. Not ability, but friendship. Not merit, but pull. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Ayn_Rand" title="Ayn Rand">Ayn Rand</a>, Dominique Francon in <i>The Fountainhead</i> (1968), p. 727</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Every highly privileged group develops the myth of its natural, especially its blood, superiority. Under conditions of stable distribution of power and, consequently, of status order, that myth is accepted by the negatively privileged strata. Such a situation exists as long as the masses continue in that natural state of theirs in which thought about the order of domination remains but little developed, which means, as long as no urgent needs render the state of affairs “problematical.” But in times in which the class situation has become unambiguously and openly visible to everyone as the factor determining every man’s individual fate, that very myth of the highly privileged about everyone having deserved his particular lot has often become one of the most passionately hated objects of attack. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Max_Weber" title="Max Weber">Max Weber</a>, <i><a href="/wiki/Economy_and_Society" title="Economy and Society">Economy and Society</a></i> (1922), p. 953</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="See_also">See also</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Meritocracy&amp;action=edit&amp;section=2" title="Edit section: See also"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Aristocracy" title="Aristocracy">Aristocracy</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Government" title="Government">Government</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Politics" title="Politics">Politics</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Justice" title="Justice">Justice</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Law" title="Law">Law</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Constitution" class="mw-redirect" title="Constitution">Constitution</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Democracy" title="Democracy">Democracy</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Court" class="mw-redirect" title="Court">Court</a></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="External_links">External links</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Meritocracy&amp;action=edit&amp;section=3" title="Edit section: External links"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <div class="noprint" style="clear: right; border: solid #aaa 1px; margin: 0 0 1em 1em; font-size: 90%; background: #f9f9f9; width: 250px; padding: 4px; spacing: 0px; text-align: left; float: right;"> <div style="float: left;"><figure class="mw-halign-none" typeof="mw:File"><a href="/wiki/File:Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg" class="mw-file-description" title="Wikipedia"><img alt="Wikipedia" src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg/50px-Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg.png" decoding="async" width="50" height="46" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg/75px-Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg/100px-Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="103" data-file-height="94" /></a><figcaption>Wikipedia</figcaption></figure></div> <div style="margin-left: 60px;"><a href="/wiki/Wikipedia" title="Wikipedia">Wikipedia</a> has an article about: <div style="margin-left: 10px;"><i><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Meritocracy">Meritocracy</a></b></i></div> </div> </div> <table class="wikitable mw-collapsible"> <tbody><tr> <td style="background:#E4F2E4" align="center" colspan="3"><b>Social and political philosophy</b> </td></tr> <tr> <td style="background:#E4F2E4">Ideologies</td> <td><a href="/wiki/Anarchism" title="Anarchism">Anarchism</a> ⦿ <i><a href="/wiki/Aristocracy" title="Aristocracy">Aristocratic Radicalism</a></i><small> (<a href="/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche" title="Friedrich Nietzsche">Nietzsche</a> • <a href="/wiki/Georg_Brandes" title="Georg Brandes">Brandes</a>...)</small> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Autarchism" class="mw-redirect" title="Autarchism">Autarchism</a> ⦿ <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba%27athism" class="extiw" title="w:Ba&#39;athism">Ba'athism</a> <small>(• <a href="/wiki/Michel_Aflaq" title="Michel Aflaq">Aflaq</a> • <a href="/wiki/Hafez_al-Assad" title="Hafez al-Assad">al-Assad</a> • <a href="/wiki/Saddam_Hussein" title="Saddam Hussein">Hussein</a>)</small> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Communism" title="Communism">Communism</a> ⦿ (Neo-)<a href="/wiki/Confucianism" class="mw-redirect" title="Confucianism">Confucianism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Conservatism" title="Conservatism">Conservatism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Constitutions" title="Constitutions">Constitutionalism</a> ⦿ <i><a href="/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment" class="mw-redirect" title="Dark Enlightenment">Dark Enlightenment</a></i> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Environmentalism" title="Environmentalism">Environmentalism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Fascism" title="Fascism">Fascism</a> <small>(• <i><a href="/wiki/Islamofascism" title="Islamofascism">Islamo-</a></i> • <a href="/wiki/Pentti_Linkola" title="Pentti Linkola">Eco-</a> • <a href="/wiki/Francoism" class="mw-redirect" title="Francoism">Francoism</a>...)</small> <b>vs.</b> <a href="/wiki/Nazism" title="Nazism">Nazism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Feminism" title="Feminism">Feminism</a> <small>(• <a href="/wiki/Anarcha-feminism" title="Anarcha-feminism">Anarcha-</a> • <a href="/wiki/Radical_feminism" title="Radical feminism">Radical</a> • <a href="/wiki/Gender-critical_feminism" title="Gender-critical feminism">Gender-critical</a> • <a href="/wiki/Second-wave_feminism" title="Second-wave feminism">Second-wave</a>...)</small> ⦿ <i><a href="/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin" title="Curtis Yarvin">Formalism</a></i><b>/</b><a href="/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin" title="Curtis Yarvin">(Neo-)</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/cameralism" class="extiw" title="w:cameralism">cameralism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Herbert_Marcuse" title="Herbert Marcuse">Freudo-Marxism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Muammar_Gaddafi" title="Muammar Gaddafi">Gaddafism</a><b>/</b><i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_International_Theory" class="extiw" title="w:Third International Theory">Third International Theory</a></i> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Han_Fei" title="Han Fei">Legalism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Leninism" class="mw-redirect" title="Leninism">Leninism</a><b>/</b><i><a href="/wiki/Vanguardism" class="mw-redirect" title="Vanguardism">Vanguardism</a></i> ⦿ <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juche" class="extiw" title="w:Juche">Juche</a> <small>(• <a href="/wiki/Kim_Il-sung" title="Kim Il-sung">Kim Il-sung</a> • <a href="/wiki/Kim_Jong-il" title="Kim Jong-il">Kim Jong Il</a> • <a href="/wiki/Kim_Jong-un" title="Kim Jong-un">Kim Jong Un</a>...)</small> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Liberalism" title="Liberalism">Liberalism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Libertarianism" title="Libertarianism">Libertarianism</a><b>/</b><a href="/wiki/Laissez-faire" title="Laissez-faire">Laissez-faire</a> <a href="/wiki/Capitalism" title="Capitalism">Capitalism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Maoism" class="mw-redirect" title="Maoism">Maoism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Marxism" title="Marxism">Marxism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Mozi" title="Mozi">Mohism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Republicanism" class="mw-redirect" title="Republicanism">Republicanism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Social_democracy" title="Social democracy">Social democracy</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Socialism" title="Socialism">Socialism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Stalinism" title="Stalinism">Stalinism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Leo_Strauss" title="Leo Strauss">Straussianism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism" title="Anarcho-syndicalism">Syndicalism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Xi_Jinping" title="Xi Jinping">Xi Jinping thought</a> ⦿ <i><a href="/wiki/New_Monasticism" title="New Monasticism">New Monasticism</a></i> <small>(• <a href="/wiki/Alasdair_MacIntyre" title="Alasdair MacIntyre">MacIntyre</a> • <a href="/wiki/Rod_Dreher" title="Rod Dreher">Dreher</a>...)</small> </td></tr> <tr> <td style="background:#E4F2E4">Modalities</td> <td><a href="/wiki/Absolutism" title="Absolutism">Absolutism</a> <b>vs.</b> <a href="/wiki/Social_constructionism" title="Social constructionism">Social constructionism</a><b>/</b><a href="/wiki/Relativism" title="Relativism">Relativism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Autarky" title="Autarky">Autarky</a><b>/</b><a href="/wiki/Autonomy" title="Autonomy">Autonomy</a> <b>vs.</b> <a href="/wiki/Heteronomy" title="Heteronomy">Heteronomy</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Authoritarianism" title="Authoritarianism">Authoritarianism</a><b>/</b><a href="/wiki/Totalitarianism" title="Totalitarianism">Totalitarianism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Colonialism" title="Colonialism">Colonialism</a> <b>vs.</b> <a href="/wiki/Imperialism" title="Imperialism">Imperialism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Communitarianism" title="Communitarianism">Communitarianism</a> <b>vs.</b> <a href="/wiki/Liberalism" title="Liberalism">Liberalism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Elitism" title="Elitism">Elitism</a> <b>vs.</b> <a href="/wiki/Populism" title="Populism">Populism</a><b>/</b><a href="/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority" title="Tyranny of the majority">Majoritarianism</a><b>/</b><a href="/wiki/Egalitarianism" title="Egalitarianism">Egalitarianism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Individualism" title="Individualism">Individualism</a> <b>vs.</b> <a href="/wiki/Collectivism" title="Collectivism">Collectivism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Nationalism" title="Nationalism">Nationalism</a> <b>vs.</b> <a href="/wiki/Cosmopolitanism" title="Cosmopolitanism">Cosmopolitanism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Particularism" class="mw-redirect" title="Particularism">Particularism</a> <b>vs.</b> <a href="/wiki/Universalism" title="Universalism">Universalism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Modernism" title="Modernism">Modernism</a><b>/</b><a href="/wiki/Progressivism" title="Progressivism">Progressivism</a> <b>vs.</b> <a href="/wiki/Postmodernism" title="Postmodernism">Postmodernism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Reactionism" class="mw-redirect" title="Reactionism">Reactionism</a><b>/</b><a href="/wiki/Traditionalism" class="mw-redirect" title="Traditionalism">Traditionalism</a> <b>vs.</b> <a href="/wiki/Futurism" title="Futurism">Futurism</a><b>/</b><a href="/wiki/Transhumanism" title="Transhumanism">Transhumanism</a> </td></tr> <tr> <td style="background:#E4F2E4">Concepts</td> <td><a href="/wiki/Alienation" title="Alienation">Alienation</a> ⦿ <i><a href="/wiki/Samuel_T._Francis" title="Samuel T. Francis">Anarcho-tyranny</a></i> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/%C3%89mile_Durkheim" title="Émile Durkheim">Anomie</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Authority" title="Authority">Authority</a> ⦿ <i><a href="/wiki/Robert_Conquest" title="Robert Conquest">Conquest's Laws of Politics</a></i> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Duty" title="Duty">Duty</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Eugenics" title="Eugenics">Eugenics</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Elite" title="Elite">Elite</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Elite_theory" title="Elite theory">Elite theory</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Emancipation" title="Emancipation">Emancipation</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Equality" title="Equality">Equality</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Freedom" title="Freedom">Freedom</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Government" title="Government">Government</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Hegemony" title="Hegemony">Hegemony</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Hierarchy" title="Hierarchy">Hierarchy</a> ⦿ <i><a href="/wiki/Robert_Michels" title="Robert Michels">Iron law of oligarchy</a></i> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Justice" title="Justice">Justice</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Law" title="Law">Law</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Monopoly" title="Monopoly">Monopoly</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Natural_law" title="Natural law">Natural law</a> ⦿ <i><a href="/wiki/Noblesse_oblige" title="Noblesse oblige">Noblesse oblige</a></i> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Norms" class="mw-redirect" title="Norms">Norms</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Obedience" title="Obedience">Obedience</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Peace" title="Peace">Peace</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Pluralism" title="Pluralism">Pluralism</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Robert_A._Dahl" title="Robert A. Dahl"><i>Polyarchy</i></a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Power" title="Power">Power</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Propaganda" title="Propaganda">Propaganda</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Property" title="Property">Property</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Revolt" title="Revolt">Revolt</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Rebellion" title="Rebellion">Rebellion</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Revolution" title="Revolution">Revolution</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Rights" title="Rights">Rights</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Ruling_class" title="Ruling class">Ruling class</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Social_contract" title="Social contract">Social contract</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Social_inequality" title="Social inequality">Social inequality</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Society" title="Society">Society</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/State" title="State">State</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Tocqueville_effect" title="Tocqueville effect">Tocqueville effect</a> ⦿ <i><a href="/wiki/Jacob_Talmon" title="Jacob Talmon">Totalitarian democracy</a></i> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/War" title="War">War</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Utopia" title="Utopia">Utopia</a> </td></tr> <tr> <td style="background:#E4F2E4">Government</td> <td><a href="/wiki/Aristocracy" title="Aristocracy">Aristocracy</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Autocracy" class="mw-redirect" title="Autocracy">Autocracy</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Bureaucracy" title="Bureaucracy">Bureaucracy</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Dictatorship" title="Dictatorship">Dictatorship</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Democracy" title="Democracy">Democracy</a> ⦿ <a class="mw-selflink selflink">Meritocracy</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Monarchy" title="Monarchy">Monarchy</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Ochlocracy" title="Ochlocracy">Ochlocracy</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Oligarchy" title="Oligarchy">Oligarchy</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Plutocracy" title="Plutocracy">Plutocracy</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Technocracy" title="Technocracy">Technocracy</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Theocracy" title="Theocracy">Theocracy</a> ⦿ <a href="/wiki/Tyranny" title="Tyranny">Tyranny</a> </td></tr></tbody></table> <!-- NewPP limit report Parsed by mw‐api‐int.codfw.main‐648bd44df8‐k4x47 Cached time: 20241115031057 Cache expiry: 2592000 Reduced expiry: false Complications: [] CPU time usage: 0.046 seconds Real time usage: 0.067 seconds Preprocessor visited node count: 64/1000000 Post‐expand include size: 4744/2097152 bytes Template argument size: 96/2097152 bytes Highest expansion depth: 5/100 Expensive parser function count: 0/500 Unstrip recursion depth: 0/20 Unstrip post‐expand size: 0/5000000 bytes Number of Wikibase entities loaded: 0/400 --> <!-- Transclusion expansion time report (%,ms,calls,template) 100.00% 6.674 1 -total 67.56% 4.509 1 Template:Wikipedia 31.12% 2.077 1 Template:Sisterproject 31.06% 2.073 1 Template:Social_and_political_philosophy --> <!-- Saved in parser cache with key enwikiquote:pcache:idhash:184212-0!canonical and timestamp 20241115031057 and revision id 3509014. 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