this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2024
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chapotraphouse
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Well, the "academic" version of meritocracy would be more accurately described as the division of labor (which is happens to be something that grew exponentially with capitalism), while the popular notion of meritocracy is how the bourgeoise justify their rule.
I'm sure you have heard of the argument defending the bourgeoise as deserving power because they "work hard, are creative and skilled". In fact, that is the most common argument in their favour I have encountered. You also hear similar justifications for colonialism and slavery.
Not sure how you can argue that. It's not about a division of labour at all. The difference between the popular understanding and the academic one is in what can be considered a merit. The academic understanding is broader.
It's also how feodals did so, and basically every political system tries to be meritocratic in the sense of having qualified people in more powerful and/or more rewarding positions, at least for some positions.
I am very well-aware of these arguments. I have even provided some of my thoughts regarding why those arguments are only appealing if one doesn't think about them too much. This sort of justification, however, is not unique to the bourgeoisie's usage of them, and also predates their dominance in the first place.
Diving up tasks by the skills of the people involved is a pretty classical example of division if labor. That goes even if whether the job is running a society and the merit is one's political knowledge.
Also, I misread your comment a bit and didn't see how the academic understanding of meritocracy includes things like inheritance or being rich. I am not talking about these things when I say "meritocracy", especially as an ideology that justifies bourgeois rule. I am sure you have encountered liberals who struggle to reconcile capitalism's supposed meritocratic nature with the existence of inhereticance.
It's more complicated with feudal lords. They portrayed themselves as God's chosen, rulers by moral virtue rather than by skill. As far as I know, the early bourgeois rebels against feudal rule heavily lambasted the un-meritocratic nature of feudalism.
This might just be my own ideological bias showing, but is this actually true? I don't see how class systems based on rigid inheritance can even pretend to be meritocratic. You would need at least some class mobility to make the illusion work.
Meritocracy is not concerned with division of tasks by skills. It is concerned with rewarding people of merit, and providing them with power.
Yeah, this is rather common, which is why I pointed out this discrepancy between how meritocracy is understood popularly and how it is understood academically.
A part of my interest in commenting here is not having prepared an answer quickly enough to one such person whom I did try to turn socialist. After one of our conversations, they said that they looked into and like 'some right-wing ideas', and, as an example they provided meritocracy. I already had my issues with meritocracy, but couldn't provide a comprehensive critique at that moment, so I did not pursue that topic. This is kind of an outlet for my thoughts on that matter.
I'm confident that they also claimed to be more skilled than the non-aristocratic members of society, and that inheritance allowed them to produce most qualified people in the society.
Also, being a 'god's chosen' is a merit under the relevant systems.
You have people who believe that such traits are inheritable as well, and that educating their spawn from early age for rather specific tasks (such as ruling a fief) creates the most skilful members of society.
There was, indeed, some class mobility.
For example, unless I'm missing something and bourgeoisie was already dominant in the Russian Empire of the 18th century, there is Mikhail Lomonosov, one of the most important scientists of the time, who came from a peasant family and managed to become a noble by becoming a professor. The Russian Imperial table of ranks provided a systemic way of achieving inheritable noble status (starting with different ranks for military and civilian ranks).