Why egalitarian causes always fail
There are some humans who will always look for and find the way to turn upheaval to their advantage, whether it's an invasion, a war, an economic disaster, or a revolution. When egalitarianism is a popular goal, these people will champion it, but they have no intention of being anywhere but at the top of the shuffled deck.
This is the main reason stratification has always followed the removal of a Czar, a French or English King, a Chinese emperor, and so forth. Every generation will have its sinful elite, not because the people failed to express the true ideals of liberalism or Marxism, but because we never escape our nature.
This is the main reason stratification has always followed the removal of a Czar, a French or English King, a Chinese emperor, and so forth. Every generation will have its sinful elite, not because the people failed to express the true ideals of liberalism or Marxism, but because we never escape our nature.
Comments (101)
Would you rather be a rich pig or a poor horse?
Where we actually are, I don't get a lot of choices of where in society I would rather be.
Would it be easier if we accept our determinism and destiny?
All of those "political theories" are just a clever move to remain a politician in power. Are they worthy to read or understand? absolutely. But I don't see the ideals of liberalism and Marxism worthy in nowadays. The society got more complex than ever and the younger generation no longer want to get in revolutions if they live well-off with materialistic entertainment.
Egalitarianism, democracy and all these positive and morally just ideas can end up to be simple rhetoric that has nothing to do with reality. Power is so intoxicating for some that they will hold on to it until they die. All other desires, be that sex, fame, wealth, aren't so intoxicating. People will kill others for power, if they can achieve it with murder. Hence there simply has to be ground rules and idea in the minds of the leaders that they have power for a limited time and then it goes to the next people.
A system without those safety valves can easily create autocrats.
The problem with animal farm, as with marxism, is that there simply aren't any of those safety valves that you have in a democracy and in a justice state. Especially when you start with a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, you simply will get a dictatorship. Has happened so every time. People not agreeing with you aren't people, they are the enemy.
You might argue that every society has it's pigs leading us, but that's not the case. The pigs can act and behave quite differently. In a perfect society, we will feel that our pigs are incompetent in many things, but somewhat OK. Yet they aren't thieves and murderers. In a democracy, it doesn't get better than that.
I just finished a book that closely examined the series of European revolutions in 1848. The reality is that there are a variety of different strata or classes which, for different reasons can either become radicalized (tending to support the proletariat) or reactionary (tending to support the elite). Eventually, one class that ideologically supports revolution swings to the reactionary side to protect social stability (i.e. those who have 'something to lose'). Probably this is due to a failure to recognize the true extent of the proletariat and a wish to belong to the sphere of the elite (which by its nature has to be extremely tiny). But human greed, or human nature as you say, has a lot to do with that.
Show me three dictatorships without individual, identifiable dictators having hijacked a system that was originally intended for the common good.
Quoting ssu
I don't understand. What perfect society? Which democracy makes it okay for leaders to be incompetent as long as they're not murderers?
The more interesting question, for me, is why so many other people follow incompetents, pretenders, charlatans and crackpots?
Yes. I didn't mean to be expressing angst, though. It's just a thought that occurred to me about why the ideal of egalitarianism never seems to get far. It's not that our wills are being thwarted by greedy evil doers, it's that we naturally gravitate toward hierarchy and there are those who actively seek to turn events to their favors instead of waiting patiently for human spirit to manifest itself or whatever.
Exactly. But they couldn't succeed if the population at large didn't want to be led, right?
And egalitarianism is the club we use to kill the elite so we can take their place. :up:
Unfortunately, if we do not at some point figure out how to manage an equitable redistribution of wealth and educate enough people to ensure it stays redistributed, hard economic realities dictate that there will be a vicious clash between "those who have literally nothing left to lose" and "those who stole the basic necessities of life from everyone else".
You would think that 'enlightened self-interest' would rear its head eventually.
Or if the elite weren't using the power of their resources to completely shred value of the information, to the point where most people are so obsessed with misinformation, and conspiracy theories about misinformation, that they simply have no idea what is going on, or what is actually in their own best interest. Per my post on the value and power of public information, which got zero comments.
But hasn't that happened over and over? In order to equitably redistribute wealth, a revolution would be required. Once the revolution is under way, there's a portion of the population already making their way to positions of power.
It's cyclic.
:up:
It's both. But I do have a problem with the phrase 'naturally gravitate'. I do think social animals evolved an advantage in designating leaders and instituting rules of privilege, indulgence and protocol: it keeps interpersonal conflict to a minimum and reinforces solidarity, which is good for the group.
Human groups have experimented with all kinds of social structure. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/56269264 more rationally and practically than other animals, and have come up with many ways to circumvent individual ambition in those who would overreach.
The problem we have now is far too many people, too great a diversity within populations and an increasing inability to communicate. Yes, ironically, the more technology enables us to broadcast information, opinion, propaganda, lies, misunderstandings, jingo, spin, malice, campaign promises, gossip, advertising, preachment, news, statistics, editorials, educational material and entertainment, the less we actually communicate with one another, the more alienated each individual becomes, the more lonely and anxious we feel. As social animals, we can't bear isolation. So we are attracted to the virtual tribes created by artificial "leaders" and their slogans, and their simplistic solutions.
Well, I can think of Vietnam (earlier North Vietnam), which after Ho Chi Minh hasn't had a similar father figure, but something like 14 different presidents (or something in that number). Then there is Myanmar, which has been ruled by generals for quite a while, not by one superior individual general. Either country isn't a democracy. A third one doesn't come to mind now, hence it's usual that a political movement that drives for political change by using dictatorial powers usually will end up with one individual as a dictator.
Quoting Vera Mont
What I tried to say: in democracies people aren't always jubilantly happy about their elected leaders and there simply always is an opposition. That's why they change from time to time. And this is an inherent, structural issue in democracies: people have different ideas about what the best policies would be. Hence it's a fallacy that you could have an elected leadership that everybody, 100%, would approve.
In this case the best thing is that even if we don't accept all those that can win elections, at least they do have to share the founding principles of a justice state, starting from basics like people don't abuse their position of power, abide to the laws, and honor the democratic process.
Many times people aren't asked who leads them and try to stay away from the dangerous mess that is politics. If your country is a failed state, the biggest problem for you isn't who claims to be the leader.
And sometimes it is not even ask those who are put into power: for example emperor Claudius was put to be the fourth emperor of Rome, because the deaf limping guy was the last male in the family to survive the reign of Tiberius and Caligula. That he was found by the Praetorian guard hiding behind a curtain might really have happened.
Do Finlanders go off into the tundra to avoid governmental interference?
Lol, no. Neither do the Swedes.
Interestingly Finns do have a quite different view about their state and government that the Americans. We are just happy that our country has survived as an sovereign state. Looking at other Fenno-Ugric people in Russia, it's quite clear that our tiny population is quite expendable. Nobody would have given a rats ass if the Finns would have been assimilated to Russians and never had their independent country.
Hence we have a lot of faith and trust at our goverment. Small place, not much corruption, everybody knows nearly everybody. Heck, I do voluntary work for the government! :meh:
Oligarchies, yes; I should have thought of that option. But military dictatorships still have a chain of command, just like monarchies, even if the turnover rate at the top is too fast to establish a single figurehead. They may not all get statues, but they give one another lots of medals - some with a poisoned pin.
Quoting ssu
But democracy is not the usual outcome of a populist revolution. Democracy is the usual outcome of a gradually dismantled monarchy. First, the aristocracy demands a hand in governance in return for supporting the king; then rules and limits are laid on the king; then a constitution is drawn up; the aristocracy metamorphoses into a senate or Hose of Lords; then the middle class wants a look-in because it's supplying the funds, so it gets a parliament, and so on, until the big general strike when all the common men finally win a right to vote, and then all their wives go on strike.... A long process of democratization, not one big clash of arms.
And then, it's just as usual for democracy to devolve into oligarchy, nepotism, dynastic rule, military dictatorship and despotism by a once-charismatic megalomaniac.
It is a game of opportunity.
In a selfish, individualistic and inherently distrusting society, egalitarianism gains potency. Such a state of affairs favours good will as it is unusual, and the general populous are ill equipped to deal with it. It easily overpowers as it has the advantage of being unfamiliar, understated and insidious/covert.
In an egalitarian, co-operative and trusting society, selfishness, manipulation and exploitation gains traction in much the same way.
Whatever is more difficult to detect and contend, becomes the more influential force.
At the end of the day, balance is always the go to.
Just as when everyone is Conservative, a Liberal ideal is new, fresh, appealing and a clear demonstration of potential for change, and when a society is overly Liberal, Conservative values become the hallmark of progress.
The majority is stagnancy, a stalemate, uninspiring, boring and unworkable. The minority is the forefront of innovation.
This pendulum has been swinging to and fro for millenia.
Populist no, definately. But notice that populism (not to be mixed with something being popular) is confrontational and adverserial: it's us, the ordinary people, against them. Be they the leaders, the elite, the rich or some ethnic minority that is seen to dominate.
Populists don't want democracy. They just want to gain power and once in power they usually have to find the enemy somewhere else.
Quoting Vera Mont
Or just like in Germany, Czechoslovakia (with then dissolved itself) and in the Baltic States, can come back if the state has been earlier in history a democracy. And that's one thing positive about democracies. Yes, you can get an autocrat elected, who does a self-coup and changes the democracy into being in name only, yet democracies can recover.
Quoting Vera Mont
Few countries have been able to transform from a monarchy to a democracy (usually becoming constitutional monarchies) without any violence. Sweden comes to my mind. With the UK people usually forget that the country was a republic (if you can call the military dictatorship that) for a while.
Okay. I was interested in why so many of the people - us - are prepared to follow the leaders of such a movement. Presumably, not because each of the foot-soldiers hopes to dominate someone, but because they're hoping to get free of oppression. Those leaders may not want democracy, but the followers presumably do.
Quoting ssu
Gradual doesn't rule out violence. The violence, however, is not a single clash, but long civil war between contenders for one throne, or a struggle for independence from a foreign power, or sporadic factional conflict or religious upheavals... all kinds of violence that's not about Joe Bloe getting a vote, but each contributing to a situation that erodes the absolute power and opens the way to more participants in decision-making.
Well said. I absolutely agree. We want what we don't have.
In other words, good never ubiquitously prevails because there is bad in the world. Therefore, we should shun a striving for that which is good; instead favoring either the bad or a magical type of eternally unchanging, self-sustained, homeostasis between good and bad that never progresses in either direction.
Am I missing something significant in this interpretation of the issue?
Heck, to each their own. Hence the myriad conflicts of life.
Yes. That's exactly what I was saying.
The exclusion makes it hard to engage with your proposition.
You're looking at the issue very moralistically. As I've mentioned a couple of times in this thread, I don't think what I'm describing is about evil people. It's our nature, which I conceive as partly genetic and partly a collection of habits that have a winning track record for us.
To keep things simple (I never mentioned "evil"), you could have mentioned this the first time around instead of replying:
Quoting frank
For what its worth, then, from my vantage: egalitarian interests such as those of democratic governance cannot work in the absence of an honest checks and balances of power. The more these are eroded the more the governance becomes authoritarian - this with or without Orwellian propaganda that affirms otherwise. However, this doesn't imply that democratic governance must "always fail".
It's like saying that, because good interpersonal relationships (friendships, of romance, etc., which tend to be egalitarian intending) are always susceptible to becoming rotten - because one or all parties can do bad things to each other - one then should shun all good interpersonal relationships ... this because they will always fail.
Yes, it will always be corrupted, and will need to be reformed periodically. So, when you're setting up the checks and balances, why not also build in a mandatory review every decade or so?
Quoting frank
Although the OP expresses the central thought of conservatism, conservatism actually offers an alternative thats a bit more hopeful than a homeostasis between good and bad that never progresses in either direction, namely gradual, organic change produced communally.*
Of course, this change would merely avoid the most egregious evils of inequality and oppression, and never result in the banishment of social hierarchy. To the humane, optimistic conservative, hierarchy and inequality dont have to be badtheyre natural and we should do our best to live with them.
This is why the welfare state was an important conservative policy until quite recently. The Emperor Ashoka said all men are my children, and later on, Bismarck created the first modern welfare state.
*communally: for a conservative, communally produced change doesnt necessarily imply democracy; its still often those at the top who are making the decisions and doing the leading, in the context of a harmonious hierarchy in which everyone knows his or her place.
My reading of course speaks to my own bias, where I find the economic interpretation and analysis interesting and the politics inconsistent (there's a reason volume 2 and 3 weren't published by Marx himself).
Marxist movements have been, as you know, political. Perhaps then I should use Marxism-Leninism. But anyway I think here it would be proper to talk about authoritarian states.
And actually I was taught also Marxist economics in the university as part of history of economics. (By a marxist, actually)
Quoting Jamal
One party rule might not change the basic system of government, but reality with a one party system does have major differences to a multiparty system. For example, the German Parliament, the Reichstag, did operate during the Third Reich. Always giving unanimous consent to the Führer.
Maybe just not mention him again? Your ideological bias is already well known without needing me to point out misprepresentations.
Of course. Its just weird to use Marxism to refer to a system of government, because its primarily an analysis and critique of capitalism. It implies that Marxism is necessarily against democracy.
But this discussion is much wider and more interesting than the issue of what is or isnt Marxist, so I wont continue to debate it here.
What has in history come of the attempts of doing Marxist revolution? I'm looking at history, not selected quotes from Marx. Naturally communism ought to have democracy, but the little trouble with that is that the class enemy tend to be the people you would have in any democracy. Yeah, Marx perhaps didn't intend it, but many times these revolutions come to be at ground level things like killing the rich (and vice versa, killing working class activists).
It's one thing what the economist / philosopher thinks, it's another thing what the implementation of those thoughts lead to.
Besides the question is far older than Marx as the question of wealth distribution, which in my view is one the core differences between the left and the right, is a question that you had already in ancient Rome.
Yes, let's look at history. What did Marx do other than be a committed democrat during his lifetime? Your bias is obvious and your lack of knowledge and understanding of his work apparent.
I think the critique of "Animal Farm" was against Marxism-Leninism. The story obviously was about Soviet Russia. I think that the Spanish Civil war had opened eyes of Orwell. For many fighting on the Republic side, that did happen.
I'll repeat: It's one thing what the economist / philosopher thinks, it's another thing what the implementation of those thoughts lead to.
Im vaguely ashamed of myself for criticizing you, as Im usually on your side against liberal apologists for capitalism like @ssu, however, things are a bit more complicated. (I also said I wasnt going to carry on down this route in this discussion, but here I am again, arguing about Marxism.)
First, ssu mentioned Marxism, the tradition that grew out of Marx and developed the theories. One such development, as ssu has mentioned, was Marxism-Leninism, which can fairly be said to promote one party rule.
Second, Marx himself spoke in favour of revolutionary terror and of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
On the other hand, the dictatorship of the proletariat doesnt necessarily entail one-party rule: anti-Stalinist Marxists point to the unfulfilled promise of workplace and soviet (council) democracy as a way to actualize it.
THis is out of context: the revolutionary terror was to be exercised if the political expression of labourers was surpressed. In his time only rich men had a vote and he worked, putting himself in danger. He was forced out of France because of his ideas.
And the dictatorship of the proletariat was a natural conclusion in a democratic, communal "state", whether that came about through democratic means or revolution was neither here nor there to him. In fact, he didn't want to produce "recipes for the political cookshops of the future" or something along those lines.
So yes, he said those things, and I don't even disagree. We should revolt and overthrow the corporate capitalist order that we have now and then not skip the "democratic constitution" after that.
Attempts at creating a classless society have so far resulted in monstrous regimes that were in many ways worse than what they replaced. Those who believe, as I do and against the OP, that a classless, egalitarian society is possible, probably have to face up to this.
Depends on what we mean with egalitarian. I think a healthy democratic society makes class largely meaningless because it won't be married to any type of (dis)privilege just being a member of a type of class. I also think that the consequences of valuing labour more instead of capital, will engender more equality as, regardless of type of job, a decent living will be made. So it will simply be more likely that I will sit next to a plumber at a Michelin-star than now. I hardly meet people of a "lower" class than I'm in, which is ridiculous when we live in the same country and have to decide on voting on things that affect all of us.
Unless the plumber has taken your table after slaughtering you along with all the other lickspittles of the bourgeoisie.
(I hope it doesnt happen, just to be clear)
Not reading Marx is like self-censorship. Don't read Marx because some people did evil shit in his name. That would be a good reason to not read the Bible either I guess. I read both, the Bible is also worthwhile to read even if I don't believe in God. But it does give cultural knowledge and a better understanding of moral thinking in (former) Christian societies.
Yes, and without the remotest prospect of a movement for the overthrow of capitalism, I think it follows that liberal democracy must be defended, and also constantly criticized from within.
I dont know if anyone here is arguing that we shouldnt read Marx. I wish people knew more Marx than the relatively unimportant manifesto.
Fixed it for you. :joke:
But how is it going to come to pass that a society values labour more than capital?
Just now read Habermas' analysis of the formation of the 'bourgeois public sphere' by and during the rise of capitalism. He describes how the "interests of capitalists engaged in manufacture prevailed over those engaged in trade," specifically because the former were directly responsible for the "employment of the country's population."
So you can say that the legitimacy of whatever 'public authority' capitalists wield (inasmuch as they actually do have direct influence on the state), derives from their representing the interests of the working class. And yet the history of capitalism demonstrates time and time again that capitalists without fail will mercilessly sacrifice the health and well-being of their own workers, which they treat as a disposable commodity, unless aggressively regulated. Das Kapital reads like an historical catalog of the abuses of capitalist employers. And nothing has changed. Corporations are the bane of humanity.
I have no clue. If I look at current politics in the Netherlands, everybody hates the established political parties. Culturally conservative parties (new right) are fragmented but very successful with continuously fomenting distrust, fear and lies and they clearly don't care about the truth. The progressive socialists take their own words too seriously and don't really know how to effectively reply. Part of that is a result of the betrayal of labour parties of labourers, who see some sort of protection with the right wing parties because everything used to be better. And we often do see relatively social programs on the new right.
I do think the language of hope is much stronger. Socialists should address the fears people have while couching it in a wider narrative of class struggle and a clear path forward to improvement. And have some stuff you simply do not make concessions. Red-lines, higher tax burden for labour, lower tax burden on capital, that sort of stuff.
Was he talking about the British Industrial Revolution? Part of that event was an intentional transformation of Ireland into a purely agrarian domain to supply food so that English and Scotch labor could be transferred off the land to work in factories.
But prior to that, trading had been the path out of serfdom. The elite was a combination of aristocrats and clergymen whose religion explained why the dominance of the aristocracy was God's will. The rise of liberalism in Europe was clearly an egalitarian project in its infancy. Money was the great equalizer. Do you agree with that?
So as I see it, @frank has to argue either that the kind of society that has been most common in the human past, namely hunter-gatherers, is or was not egalitarian, because of human nature; or that although those societies were egalitarian, they went against our nature, and given agriculture and industry, our inegalitarian nature is now impossible to overcome.
Anthropologists differ on how egalitarian humans are and on how egalitarian hunter-gatherers were, but its safe to say that we can withstand a great variety of societies, and I dont see any reason to think that egalitarianism is doomed. In the end, thats temperamentalbut also political.
I'm not sure that I do. By all accounts, things were a lot more equal before money. Money facilitated first trade, but then capitalism, which definitely does not contribute to egalitarianism through its own nature. Capitalism concentrates wealth through money.
As I mentioned elsewhere, it certainly seems like revolutions initially involve the hard-core "have-nots" and their ideological supporters who are better off. Then, at a certain point, when things start to get really messy, a certain class of people swing to the reactionary side (i.e. aligning with entrenched power and interests) to suppress the implementation of a more far-reaching equality.
I think these 'swing-votes' lie in the hands of what I would call the best-paid proletariat. Doctors, for example, have to work hard at what they do in order to be really good. If they didn't work hard, they wouldn't be good doctors. So as paid workers, they really are part of proletariat. And the elite (like everyone else) really needs good doctors. But medicine is about the care of the whole human. You really can't have healthy people in a sick society. So I'm good with doctors being well-paid, even the best paid. Just so long as they speak out for the welfare of their entire patient base when they are negotiating their terms.
I think that when we examine the nature of any species, it's a mistake to pull the organism out of its world. Living things not only adapt, but they actively alter their environments. In a way, you could say the cohort and its environment are a unity. For multicellular organisms, this actually starts at the beginning. After sperm meets egg, the first differentiation in the blob is to grow something like a seed pod to surround the proto-embryo. In other words, the first action of your genetic material was to create a protective structure to allow further development. You eventually discarded that shell, but ever since, you have been engaged in that same activity: altering the world to suit your needs, and we do this on a larger scale as well. Most living things do.
So if our environment is part of what we are, let's allow humanity to be a moving target as it adapts to and reforms its circumstances. What was natural for hunter gatherers, whatever that may have been, was a reflection of what worked for us at the time.
So in the OP, when I say that egalitarian causes are obstructed by something that's coming to us naturally, my point is not to argue that we can't make that kind of transition, but rather to point out that we aren't beset by evil doers when we fail. Our ambitions are being thwarted by a natural tendency to create hierarchial social structures.
Money was invented in Lydia around the 6th Century BC. I wasn't looking that far backward, but life was definitely hierarchial before that.
My point was that in Europe, the rise of liberalism was a movement against the aristocracy. It was an egalitarian project. The USA is product of that movement.
I'm sure Nietschze wouldn't have been enthusiastic of the Third Reich making him their favorite philosopher either. But history tells us how ideas are used, abused and tried to be implemented.
Quoting Benkei
Capitalism is fervently discounted all the time and likely will be continued to be opposed in the future too. Yet Netherlands is a quite nice place to live in.
Quoting Benkei
I'm not so sure if only Marx is vilified, especially when some have started to judge historical people from viewpoint of our present time and not as children of their age.
Yes, the Communist Manifesto should be understood in the context of it's time, and Marx himself acknowledge that the proletariat might just end up demanding higher salaries, yet it shouldn't be difficult to understand how people will take it when you write things like:
Then people reading Marx like gospel will go for those "despotic inroads".
It's just like populism: the adversarial juxtaposition of people can lead to ugly results, because people are divided to "us" and "them", good and bad.
...
Quoting frank
So, are you suggesting that our natural environment has changed in the last few thousand years? Because absent that its hard to see what you could mean by saying a tendency to create hierarchial social structures is 'natural'. What environmental stimulus are you imaging we're responding to today that was absent when we were hunter-gatherers?
No.
The point (which you conveniently ignored) was at what cost is the Netherlands now quite a nice place to live?
At what cost to Africa (from which a large part of it's wealth was stolen)?
At what cost to the future (climate change, pollution, health decline)?
At what cost to values (is it just to buy a nice place to live for most at the expense of a few)?
Anything which focuses on only one part of a mixed system can exculpate itself by bracketing out any parts not amenable to the theory.
Then how is a "tendency to create hierarchial social structures" natural absent of any evidence that that's what we do in all circumstances?
As I tried to give @Benkei the example of Nietzsche and Nazi ideology. Was Nietzsche hijacked? Misunderstood or misinterpreted? That's one discussion, but it cannot refute the fact that Nazi ideology cherished Nietzsche's thoughts. However much "misinterpretation" there was.
Hence I understand fully well, that the writings of Karl Marx and Marxism-Leninism as it existed in the 20th Century are two different things. Yet to say Marxism-Leninism, the Soviet Union and all the attempts on creating a Marxist revolution have nothing to do with the Karl Marx, is a bit too far.
But thats all boring, and it doesnt invalidate Marxs critique.
As I explained, I don't think we gain much by examining what we do in all circumstances. It's helpful to think of culture as an indicator of what we've made of ourselves, and therefore what behaviors we'll gravitate towards.
Lol. I think you are mixing up colonies of Belgium and the Dutch (as the Dutch Cape colony existed until 1806) and the largest colony was the East Indies (modern Indonesia).
Above all Stalin was also an organizer, who kept the Soviet experiment going. But I don't think his way into power was some kind of accident, it's something that likely would happen sooner or later. When you are committed to revolution and using violence, it's no surprise that a very violent person (or some who use a lot of violence) will end up in charge.
That's why you do need the safety valves of a democracy, a constitution, elements of a justice state and so on.
Quoting Jamal
It's easy to make a critique of how things are. The important issue what you give as an answer.
Im not sure any man can occupy a higher position over and above others if there is no such position. The failure of egalitarian causes is that they wish to occupy such positions, for whatever reason, thereby placing themselves over and above others. The problem is the existence of the State.
Egalitarian causes, like socialism and liberalism, were born out of dissatisfaction with social structures which resulted in oppression and mismanagement. Historically, these movements appeared when there was a general sense that something was grievously wrong with the status quo. It's an eye opener to learn how widespread socialist attitudes were in the late 1800s to early 1900s. Marxism is just a vestige of something that was much grander. The world we live in is the opposite of that. Socialists are generally in the minority now and so it seems a socialist cause is, as you say, attempting to force something on the rest of the population.
Quoting NOS4A2
Statehood is something that's deeply embedded in who we are as a species now. Does it have a downside? Of course. It's like our knees: they cause all sorts of problems, but we can't very well stop using them.
It's not about circumstances. I'm asking you to justify the claim that the behaviour is "natural".
No, just not naive enough to think that Western nation which had less to do with colonialism miraculously derived their wealth independently of those who were more involved. Did the Netherlands have some kind of early boycott of all colonial-derived wealth?
And nice dodge of all the key questions, by the way. Like the specific matter of which actual capitalist country we're talking about is the point.
Slavery was once considered in a similar manner. Nowadays we could never think about going back to it.
Sure. As I said, I think human nature is a moving target.
Human nature is both egalitarian and stratifying, i.e. we do have tendencies tor greed, social status seeking etc etc... but at the same time we also have a moral impulse that wants to tear down those who seek to elevate themselves above others at the cost of the group.
Egalitarian projects fail, because of scale and specialisation that becomes needed in larger groups. The moral impulse, social control, works better in smaller groups where nobody is inherently all that much elevated above others. But when you get larger groups, more specialisation and more power concentrated in certain required roles, it's harder for these moral impulses to keep those that seek elevation down.
Scale is the issue, not human nature (or at least not directly).
I'll buy that.
Thanks for that perspective on conservatism.
All the same, if the "humane" form of conservatism you address does intend to progress toward somewhere, isnt it incrementally progressing toward an more egalitarian society (contra progression toward the authoritarianism of a fascist state, for example)?
Maybe a root issue here is what is meant by egalitarianism. Does the term intend something along the lines of an equality of fundamental rights for every citizen (e.g., a CEO gets ticketed just as a janitor will for a parking violation despite the stratification of economic class between the two to not bring into the conversation more complex issues, such as healthcare) or does it imply the absolute equality of all people in all ways?
I think all can agree that the latter interpretation is an absurdity through and through. Brings to mind Kurt Vonneguts short story "Harrison Bergeron":
Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron#Plot
Not all people can be of an exact equal height, kind of thing.
With this in mind, I so far don't view egalitarian causes being incompatible to hierarchy / stratification. I've so far interpreted the egalitarian ideal struggled for to be one where people of different ranks, abilities, talents, intelligences, etc. are yet valued as people irrespective of their placements on these metrics. This in contrast to certain authoritarian ideals wherein a subset of humans will deem and treat others as less than human, or some such.
Egalitarian societies score higher numbers in Societal Markers in functionality and Happiness, so they don't really fail. What really happens is ... powerful individuals within the society take advantage of our Economical and Political systems by either affecting our Environment or present a darker version of it while dividing the population. The problem is the environment (the established systems) not the "egalitarian causes".
Again I can not stress enough the importance of Scientific Knowledge in these topics.
I've expressed this sentiment multiple times in this thread. Thanks for repeating it.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Never said they do fail. I said egalitarian causes fail.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Just out of curiosity, why are you capitalizing certain letters that wouldn't generally be capitalized in English? Such as "Scientific Knowledge?" Capitalizing it in that way makes it look like you're using it as a proper name.
"Egalitarian cause" is an abstract concept. Abstract concepts can not fail. What fails is the process displaying the property described by the abstract concept. Societies are where egalitarian causes are realized. Do you agree?
Quoting frank
-So we agree there are different expressions of human behavior...not a specific type of Human Nature!
Quoting frank
Emphasizing central/main points in statements.
:up:
Useful post, thanks.
Its well-known that urban settlements and the division of labour led to increasing stratification. The socialist response is that once, however, the basic necessities of life are abundantthe development of the productive forces has reached a certain levelwe can abandon the stratification. I agree with that, and also think that we reached that point some time ago, but clearly its not an easy task.
Stratification comes also by the free market system, where supply and demand determine price and thus the income of people. And we accept this because this usually goes along the lines of a meritocratic society: if you have quite rare abilities and knowledge for which there is a demand for, you get a higher income for your work. If on the other hand you can only do something that nearly everybody can do with little training, then likely the compensation for that work will be meager. If there is a shortage of labour, then the price of that labour has to go up, which then also affects just where people choose to work. And as we cannot know just what will be needed, we get the needed information from the price mechanism.
From the point of view of conservatism, I think its primarily negative. That is, its about taking the edge off hierarchy, preventing the flagrant abuses, rather than a positive effort towards a different kind of society. Thus, its not really about progress in the general sense. Many conservatives like to give to charity.
But because conservatism is pragmatic and diverse, theyll have many different positions on this. One might be that so long as the change is organic and gradual rather than deliberatively applied all at once on the basis of grand principles, whatever progress happens might be okay. But again, they would reject an imagined perfect goal for these changes.
NOTE: In what Ive just written, Im not really taking into account the newer, more strident kinds of conservatism associated lately with the US or with Thatcherism (some conservatives doubt that Thatcherism was a form of conservatism at all).
Quoting javra
Good question. Liberal egalitarianism refers to the former. For me, thats not good enough, but not because I want the latter. My utopian egalitarianism is about the equal possibility for every individual to flourish, to actualize their potential in whatever they choose to do, free of economic, bureaucratic, and authoritarian compulsion or hindrance. (Whatever they choose to do has limits, needless to say).
Marx would have said that egalitarianism just is the false belief that a capitalist society can be the kind of society I just sketched, hence he rejected egalitarianism along with all talk of rights and justice. He took that position for specific political reasons and I dont feel the need to follow him in that, but it does contain the insight that rights are not enough in a world where material reality doesnt allow for the full flourishing of every individual.
Interesting again, thanks.
As background for a, maybe all too naive, question on Marxism:
Speaking from a common folk understanding of capitalism, as Im so far aware of it, the term can mean different things to different people (Ive bumped into more than a few that reflexively equate it to democracy, for example; something I sharply disagree with). As for myself, though, I cant find any other succinct label for a meritocratic economy other than that of capitalism all the technicalities and history to this term aside. What I mean by this is that those who put in more effort into and have better skills at X become economically compensated for engaging in X more than those who do little if anything, lack knowhow, or both when engaging in X. As a theoretical ideal this may seem straightforward enough, but it would require societal movements toward a cessation of nepotism (be it racial, of economic class etc.); equal educational opportunities for all children, regardless of their parents background, to allow those who put in the greatest effort and hold the greatest knowhow to flourish the list can go on.
Im mentioning this because I so far find that an egalitarian society needs to be meritocratic (economically as well as politically) if its not to succumb to vices that undermine its long-term preservation. And this in turn would then result in certain societal hierarchies, fluid though they'd be. An authority (not to be confused with authoritarianism or authoritarian interests) in some discipline is then to ideally be trusted, respected, and economically compensated more than a trainee in the same field, for example this, again, ideally based on due merit with the further ideal that such an authority in a field works in good faith to best optimize the flourishing of those who are not as experienced in the given field.
Yes, this would, I believe, require a much more elevated moral compass of all citizens/members of an egalitarian society. But my main point to this is that an egalitarian society, to be successful in sustaining itself, can only result in a meritocratic specialization / stratification / hierarchy of roles (in large enough societies, each with its own due degree of economic compensation that in part roughly correlates the individuals degree of societal responsibility toward other(s)) ... a hierarchy which, again, would be dynamic rather than static in nature.
Feel free to disagree, of course. But I do find this ideal to be a far cry from the capitalism of today, which does not check and balance itself against such things as monopolies (economically) and oligarchies (politically); with these in turn stopping those who hold potential to improve things via innovation from so doing; hence, with these ending meritocracy. To not here evoke today's capitalism essentially being a global pyramid structure which lacks the infinite resources it is modeled on. A different issue, though.
I only know of Marx and Engels indirectly, and have not read their works. So, the naive question:
What do you gather was (more aptly, would have been) Marxs stance on a meritocratic economy? (The term meritocracy wasnt coined until recently, and even then it was initially used as a pejorative label this to argue against the very type of healthy competition and fluid stratification I was endorsing above as a needed aspect of any healthy egalitarian society be it tribal or the prospect of one that is global.)
At the very least, he did hold that labor merited more than what it was getting. But I'd like better insight into the matter: would he have been opposed to people being compensated based on merit?
(BTW: Coming from a [s]communist[/s] Stalinist background I immigrated to the US from Romania as a preadolescent the backlash against communism as ideology from many of those Im close to stems, not only from the Stalinist, totalitarian surveillance-state mechanisms and the like, but also form the everyday experience that many who were lazy and inept benefited greatly on account of nepotism while those who worked hard and had much to offer where often not treated very well especially if the latter were not members of the communist party. I should also add, Im personally all for community-ism which is how I rephrase my current understanding of the communist ideal when it comes it being theory on paper. Though, again, I dont have much of any expertise in firsthand readings.)
Quoting Jamal
I'm in agreement with this.
Yikes! Im going to have to do some work here. Great post. :up:
First, capitalism.
Quoting javra
In capitalism, many important relationships between people reduceby way of contracts between employers and employees or between buyers and sellers, etc.to the cash nexus, the complex of social connections whose entire raison d'etre is money. In a society in which money rules and in which work is usually done for a company operating in a market to make profits, in theory the person who can help to produce the biggest profits with skill and hard work has the highest market valuebecause their working ability, not only what they might produce, is a market commodityand is compensated accordingly. This is what I see as the truth of your meritocratic definition of capitalism.
And its an important truth, because it shows that capitalism is not, as some people claim, as old as civilization itself. Before capitalism, social relations were based on traditions and obligations that had nothing to do with money, and the people at the top had other things to think about, like winning wars, getting in to heaven, or producing an heir (and if they did make money, they didn't actually make it but just took it). A clan chief was obliged to protect his clan members and they owed him loyalty and service; a vassal was obliged to fight for his king to justify holding on to his fief, and also to protect his peasants, who in turn owed him part of their produce; and so on across many variations and times up to the modern period. Capitalism swept most of this away. The result in connection to merit was, ideally, that at last people could be rewarded for their effort and ability, not for their existing attachments of family, class, guild, religion, tradition, obligation, and so on.
But I think there is untruth in it too. The untruth is not that you failed to account for the fact that this theoretical ideal of meritocracy has not been fully realizedfollowing the passage quoted above you went on to describe exactly that. Rather, the untruth from my point of view is that you equate the theoretical ideal of meritocracy with the theoretical ideal of capitalism itself, obscuring the reality of the social relations that were ushered in by capitalism, the reality that sweeping away the stratifications of the old society did not result in an unstratified society, and more particularly, did not result in a society in which stratification was based only on merit, as you imply (at least in theory).
In your picture, to say that meritocracy has not been fully realized is also to say that capitalism has not been fully realized. I think this is an unbalanced and restricted view: if we take a wider view of capitalism, we might see that in fact, the structures and tendencies of capitalism are not always conducive to meritocracy, because they produce a kind of stratification that prevents it (concentration of wealth and opportunity, etc). So what makes your definition importantly untrue is that it is precisely capitalism that prevents the realization of meritocracy. If you equate them, you fail to see this. I know this simplifies your view but I'm outlining the problems I see in gross terms partly for my own clarification.
However, that's just a part of my critique. I think there are deeper problems with meritocracy too, but I'll come to that later.
Anyway, what I mean by "capitalism" can probably be seen in what I've written, but I'll try to summarize, and this should make it even clearer why I don't agree with your definition. A capitalist society is one in which most useful things are commodities, sold in markets by or on behalf of those who privately own the technology, raw materials, buildings, money, land, and the best part of each worker's day, required to produce them. Historically this required the separation of workers from their own tools and products and the forcible seizure and enclosure of common land by private concerns, and this state of affairs must be maintained for the system to work. Capitalism is based on dispossession and the preservation of dispossession, and that's despite the increasing abundance of consumer goods available to almost everyone. [hide=*]I think there are other ways of defining capitalism, emphasizing such things as management control, services, finance, and bureaucracy, that might be more up-to-date, but I also think that my definition could probably be altered, without thereby invalidating its thrust, to at least get rid of its obvious reliance on categories that apply specifically to industry and goods.[/hide]
So I think meritocracy is, at least in theory, a part of what capitalism is or could be, but it's not the whole story.
What follows? Rather than just a matter of, as you suggest later, stratification resulting from meritocracywhich for you is just to say, resulting from capitalismunder my view of capitalism, it's the other way around as well: capitalism is based on stratification, and this means that meritocracy, which I agreed is enabled to some degree by capitalism, is also based on stratification. Thus, meritocracy is both produced by and produces stratification.
At least, this is often what has happened in reality. Some kind of system of award for merit could also conceivably work in a rationally planned economy, not only under capitalism. But I'll come to that.
Now, on to meritocracy itself. Economics is really not my strong point, but we'll see how it goes.
Quoting javra
This is really interesting, thanks.
I can think of two basic responses. Right now Im endorsing both, even though they contradict.
1. Meritocracy is good in principle, but:
2. Meritocracy is bad in principle
1. Meritocracy is good in principle, but
You admit that meritocracy has not been fully realized:
Quoting javra
Since you agree with my first sub-point here, I don't need to argue for it, although it does occur to me that it would be worth going in to more detail to expose and emphasize the scale of the problem; as you no doubt know, it has been extensively studied over the past years and decades. Another time, maybe.
My important point is that capitalism and meritocracy are contradictory, where contradictory means something like essentially in conflict.
To put my cards on the table: meritocracy is to an important degree a myth, an idea that justifies the current reality by describing it falsely. Widespread upward mobility, which meritocracy depends on, is possible in capitalism not primarily thanks to the market, but rather to policies that curtail or ameliorate the inequality, the concentration of wealth and opportunity that the market produces. For instance, in the British post-war consensuswhen governments of both the right and the left maintained a mixed economy, a large welfare state, strong unions, and free educationupward mobility was possible to some extent. It has been visible in the changing memberships of governments, in business, in the arts, and in education, how important this was in allowing working class people to succeed professionally, and how much it has now collapsed. It began to change under Thatcher, despite her explicit and no doubt sincere belief that she was actually advancing the cause of meritocracy ("pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and all that).
The mythic nature of meritocracy is most obvious in the United States, where the myth is strongest (the American Dream), but where social mobility is among the lowest in the developed countries.
The reason for the contradiction is that under capitalism, wealth and opportunity become concentrated and inequality widens, even alongside a general alleviation of povertyand this is obviously self-reinforcing. And I'd argue that this is a structural feature of capitalism, and not simply an unfortunate epiphenomenon. I don't think we can just group this all together under the label of "nepotism" and imagine that it can be done away with while at the same time leaving the workings of capitalism alone. The market is not a socially neutral mechanism to reward the most able.
If that's not a full-enough argument to prove the inherent contradictions and tendencies of capitalism, it's because I'm trying to avoid economics as much as possible. I can pathetically hand-wave by saying that several economists have made the same points, not all of them Marxians.
2. Meritocracy is bad in principle
Meritocracy is bad in two senses. One is that it works as a myth, so that the very idea of meritocracy hides the truth (this is like Marxs attitude to the idea of egalitarianism). But the other sense is more profound: a society stratified by income and status on the basis of skill and work might not be such a good thing after all.
This is potentially the most interesting part of this post, but I'm out on a limb. In the most general terms, while I do believe that it's important for individuals to gain recognition as authorities in their fields, I simply don't believe that general social stratification along the dimensions of income and status necessarily follows from this, or that it should follow. This is a moral point of view but also a pragmatic one: social stratification leads to inequalities of not only income but also opportunity, thus it tends to negate the equality of opportunity that meritocracy ideally depends on. This can even be seen in the history of modern non-capitalist countries such as the USSR. Aside from the obvious non-meritocratic features of these economies and administrations, those who did manage to work their way up tended to form their own privileged dynasties. If it is true that meritocracy leads to stratification, as you admit, and if it is true that this will happen in both capitalist and non-captalist societies, and if it is true that meritocracy in its stratifying tendency undermines itself by negating the level playing-field, then meritocracy begins to look bad to its core. Meritocracy not only contradicts capitalism, but contradicts itself.
Even more fundamentally, I don't think I believe that people ought to be differentially awarded in the way you've described.
Stalinist countries adopted the following slogan as a purported step on the way to communism:
From each according to his ability, to each according to his work
Meritocracy seems partly to fit with this. But although I'm being utopian here, I want to go further and endorse Marx's slogan:
From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs
(where "needs" can be interpreted widely)
In other words, even for a society of equal opportunity, where ideal meritocracy might work, I want to ask: why should those who are naturally more able or inclined to produce useful things gain any privilege at all? That they should gain effective positions and the concomitant authority: that I can see; but I can't see why they should gain better, richer lives, or even higher social status, unless perhaps the production of life's necessities is generally precarious and we need incentives (this is why communism is sometimes said to depend on a post-scarcity economy).
Even more fundamentally againand this is where I go beyond even Marx's utopian sloganI think the problem here is that the very notions of productivity, usefulness, and ability are also in a way mythical, and do violence to human dignity. But I won't go on down that route, just yet.
Quoting javra
This is very agreeable. I should emphasize, in case it's not obvious, that I have no fondness or nostalgia for those regimes and think that even the initial efforts to create them were wrongheaded.
Quoting javra
Like I say, maybe we're not so far apart on this after all.
You've never boarded a plane before? You have to make sure your own mask is secured before securing that of your child. Selfish? Hardly. What good is an incapacitated parent to that of a child in need. Very little I can assure you.
Thanks for taking the time to reply in such an in-depth manner. Its appreciated.
As to discussions regarding capitalism, Im not intent on engaging in disagreements regarding a) what capitalism is in our entrenched economic model (a system that when devoid of governmental regulations will gleefully make use of forced child labor and other types of either direct or indirect slavery) verses b) what capitalism could be in terms of a more humanitarian system comprised of, I will here stress, a healthy competition in relation to private ownership of means of production for gain (i.e., for profit in far more than a merely monetary sense). Here interpreting the sweat, tears, and/or blood of an individual in their labors to produce X in itself being a means of production that is the private belonging and hence ownership (so to speak) of the individual in question. I foresee this could easily get relatively deep into debates regarding the validity of certain notions about the human psyche that today's capitalism both depends on and also skews toward a (non-metaphysical) materialism wherein all prosperity is defined via a monetary value, and I unfortunately dont currently have the luxury of enough time to engage in such debates in any meaningful sense. Ill instead strictly keep to the issue of meritocracy.
Do correct me if Im wrong about this but, in reading in-between the lines of your post, I gather that you deem Marxism opposed to compensation based on merit. This being the central motivation for my last post. That mentioned, to address some of your points:
Quoting Jamal
As to meritocracy being a myth. Yes, the term meritocracyjust as communismcan easily become perverted so as to fit Orwellian propaganda. Communist states arguably were never communistfor, though all comrades were supposed to be equal in worth, some comrades were always deemed more equal than others and materially profited accordingly (sometimes, such as can be exemplified by Romanias Nicolae Ceausescu, to exorbitant degrees). In like manner, the myth of meritocracy which youve repeatedly mentioned can to my mind only consist of the roundabout notion of this system weve got is the pinnacle of meritocracy in actiondespite all appearances to the contraryso dont question the status quo and let those in power do their thing. Otherwise, (a perfected) meritocracy is, and can only be, a target aimed atfrom which we can gauge what needs improvement. To call this target a myth would be equivalent to calling any ideal that can be held a myth, including that of health. Is the ideal of being healthy valueless or a mythhere in the sense of being a falsityon grounds that it is unreachable in absolute form? I take it that most would answer no; that all can distinguish better health from worse, and that we all would desire to be relatively healthy if were notthereby making the ideal of health something substantial, even if unobtainable in perfect form.
In this light, I dont view the concept of meritocracy as a myth but as an ideal worth struggling foragain, this as much as health (or, else, a healthy economy and politics) is an ideal that is worth pursuing. What I then mean by a meritocratic economy is not some Orwellian system that claims to so be while simultaneously not so being (requiring its double-think) but an economic system thatwhile not perfectlydoes facilitate a functional meritocracy; one which thereby can become even more meritocratic in time, despite this being very gradual.
Then there was the other theme of stratification resulting from meritocracy being a bad that works against egalitarianism.
Quoting Jamal
One key ingredient to egalitarianism is equal opportunity (imperfect though it might be). But we are, I think, addressing this in realistic terms: An individual cannot be a specialist in all societal fields simultaneously for the entirety of their livesmuch less can all people of a society fit this just expressed model. So equal opportunity cannot be equated to the possibility that all people are actualized in all societal roles.
I think it might help if I were to address hunter-gatherer tribesthese typically being the most egalitarian societies we (or at least I) currently know of. Here, the abilities and efforts of some will see them specialized into hunters and others into gatherers as adults, and some can further specialize in other fields, such as medicine. Doubtless, within many of these fields, further specializations can occur. To my knowledge, more often than not, these tribes are informally democratic. Personal gain in the form of trust, respect, and material possessions does occur for individuals. But individuals typically view themselves as parts of a collective. So the wellbeing of an individual is viewed as in large part contingent on the wellbeing of the collective. What we formally have as taxes for the purpose of benefiting the democratic state and all people therein, these tribes simply hold to be the fraternity of giving to those in need or in want from ones own resources. But one must first acquire goods (in the sense of food, knowledge, artifacts, and other valuables here not equated to moneys) in order to distribute them to others. Much like one ought first put on the oxygen mask in an airplane before assisting others with theirs, the collective tribe must first acquire goods by the abilities and efforts of the individuals within prior to having these individuals give to other members of the tribe. The medicine-man gains the opportunity to heal others of the tribe at expense of loosing opportunity to, for example, be deemed the best hunter of gazelles. But both medicine-man and best hunter of gazelleswhile being respectively compensated based on merit for their respective skills and efforts in terms of trust, respect, and material possessionswill teach others of like ability and enterprise to be as good as themselves if not better. Here, equal opportunity implies that all children of the tribe are encouraged to maximally develop their own inherent skillsas contrasted to oppressing the potential of certain children so as to further the potential of others.
OK, I acknowledge this is a very incomplete appraisal. For starters Im here focusing on male roles of the hunter-gatherer tribe (which as tribe can often enough be matriarchal). But this wont be a dissertation, only a post intending to better illustrate my view on the matter: The relatively egalitarian societies of hunter-gatherer tribes are stratified in specialty of societal roles, but (at least as I interpret them) this in relatively meritocratic means that allow for a fluidity within tribal relations.
The ideal hear is thatwhile not all potential will be actualized by all members of the given society as individuals develop from children into adultsno potential will be systematically oppressed by members of the society so as to biasedly grant other members of the society greater gains (this, again, at the expense of those individuals whose potential is actively oppressed). That all peoples' potential be encouraged to develop as much as possible. And in this, I find a pragmatic approach to the ideal of (a perfectly) equal opportunity for all members of society.
If the society were to be honestly meritocratic, then, to my way of seeing, an ever increasing proximity to equal opportunity for all in the sense just described would be enacted, this despite the resulting fluid stratification of roles and their respective compensations.
Quoting Jamal
For the same reason that, for example, the hunter which provides for the tribe has a better, richer life than the fellow tribesman whose leg was bitten off by a lion and who depends on the hunter for sustenance. Here, the two-legged hunter has greater privileges than the handicapped tribesman in terms of providing for the tribe, maybe in term of prospective lovers, and so forth. This, however, does not make the handicapped tribesman's life insignificant. If the latter, for example, is a good story (to not say myth) teller at campfires, or does his best to assist the tribe in the ways he can, then he too gains his own role-specific privilege, which is also based on merit.
As to incentives, don't we all require incentives of some form or another to do anything? The very notions of pleasure and pain come to mind, these being rudimentary incentives to all life. Why would someone invest well over a dozen years of intense study (and go into extreme debt) to become a doctor if their compensation at the end of it all would be indistinguishable from that of a warehouse worker's? I would agree that financial wealth might not be the most ideal of incentives for a doctor to so become, but I deem that there will need to be some benefit to being a doctor, such as prestige, that serves as incentive for all the effort required.
Ill take a breather at this point. Feel like apologizing for length. Suffice it to say, it is easier to post as written then to spend time editing for brevity. Fingers crossed that a sufficient amount of clarity in what I intended to express is nevertheless there.
Quoting Jamal
I tend to think this might be true as welleven if we might hold different perspectives on certain topics.
Great stuff. Ill deal with the myth issue in this post and the more difficult stuff some time in the next few days, I hope.
Quoting javra
I confess Im vacillating between saying that meritocracy is a myth tout court and saying that its a myth to some extent. I havent sorted that out yet. In any case, I think you underestimate the mythic nature of it, how it really functions in the world.
Sociologist Jo Littler argues that
[quote=Jo Littler, Against Meritocracy] the idea of meritocracy has become a key means through which plutocracy or government by a wealthy elite perpetuates, reproduces and extends itself. Meritocracy has become the key means of cultural legitimation for contemporary capitalist culture.[/quote]
Proponents of meritocracy can admit that we dont yet have meritocracy and that its an aim we should work towards, but that what we need to get there is more neoliberal policies. After all, its the market that rewards talent and hard work. This undercuts your distinction between meritocracy as myth and meritocracy as aim. The former swallows up the latter.
The idea of meritocracy will always be used to justify the present order, so that it can be plausibly argued that those at the bottom are either less talented or havent worked hard enough, and that those at the top deserve to be there. Successful entrepreneurs do this all the time, with their self-servingly inspiring narratives of failure, hard work, and eventual success (while conveniently omitting the luck, the top-class education, the comfortable childhood, etc.).
The idea cannot be used to achieve the society you envision, because by design it floats free of any comment on or critique of the fundamental economic structure of society, which I contend is the issue that has to be addressed if equal opportunity is the aim. The idea of meritocracy is neutral with regard to economic system, which means that effectively it is not neutral in a world in which capitalism is for the most part unquestioned and unchallenged. The notion that democracies and elected governments might actually make some real changes to how economies work has gone by the wayside. Democracy and government are no longer about envisioning a different society but about tinkering with what weve got, and mostly leaving capitalism alone except to prop it up when it goes wrong (very roughly speaking).
To push this point home, Id say that if you do supplement your idea, or ideal, of meritocracy with conditions with respect to how the economy worksand you produce something like an ideal of social democratic meritocracythen there is nothing much left for the idea of meritocracy to do, because what is crucial here is a vision of real equality of opportunity where merit is valued, and meritocracy is left merely emphasizing the -cracy, i.e., rule, which I know is not really the thrust of your concept.
If thats unconvincing, then merely as a practical move I think it would be wise to abandon the idea, because of the way it functions in the real world. Meritocracy can be achieved only by opposing meritocracy. [hide=note] (I apologise for these paradoxical contradictions; Ive been reading Adorno)[/hide]
On the difference between the idea of meritocracy and the idea of health
Interesting! An extremist might argue that the idea of health is a myth because it obscures the systemic barriers to health in capitalist society. Since I dont agree with this, I have to explain how meritocracy is different.
The difference is that meritocracy is fully predicated on equality of opportunity across society, whereas health does not have an equivalent dependency. Health is not a social concept, but a personal one, at least in your example. The correct parallel concept of meritocracy would be something like a society in which everyone is healthy. The reason I had to think for a moment to work that out demonstrates the mythic nature of meritocracy: as a credo for personal advancement expressed in social terms it actually hides its dependence on social circumstances that the present society cannot provide. And in the other direction, the parallel concept of health would just be something like personal success on the basis of merit, which, like health, is achievable in actually existing society, and therefore not a myth.
So, it is not the fact that meritocracy is unreachable in absolute form that makes it a myth. It is that it obscures and justifies existing inequality. The aim itself is unclear, because the important debate about how to achieve equal opportunity is hidden beneath it or relegated to a side-issue; whereas the aim of ideal health is clear (it does not obscure the fact that I should reduce my consumption of wine).
Everything Ive written so far is probably unfair with respect to your own vision of meritocracy, because its taking aim at the real ideology. Your own vision is much more agreeable, I admit.
Ill stop now. The good but difficult points I still have to answer concern the need to reward merit and the need for incentives. But Ill leave you with this: a meritocracy is by definition an oligarchy of talent, so it is essentially anti-egalitarian. From this perspective, maybe what you are arguing for is not really meritocracy at all?
I greatly value the perspectives youve been sharing.
I should maybe preface my reply with one example of what I envision by a more perfect meritocratic governance. First, in a democratic society wherein all adult individuals are of relatively equal ability, public offices could be awarded via lottery for optimal fairnessas was in large part the case in ancient Athens. That said, in contrast, in a democratic society wherein individuals are not of a relatively equal ability, a rule by merit could be in part established in the following manner: for individuals to be able to run for public office they would first need to pass a number of pre-established tests in subject matter competency. Topics could include history, law, ecology, etc., and would be democratically established. If these general subject tests are not passed, one could not then run for public officewith citizens voting only among those individuals that evidence minimum background knowledge regarding the offices they pursue. One can consider this a small piece of a more general idea that intends to oppose what the satirical movie Idiocrocy alludes to (a comedy to which I find a number of unfortunate truths). In this proposed (fraction of a) work-in-progress model, there would be a political elite selected based on meritto which all citizens would/should have roughly equal opportunity to pertainwhose evident privilege would be that of rulership for the limited terms that are democratically allotted to each public office.
This, again, in attempt to better depict what I envision as a democratic rule by merit. But, yes, devils in the details.
Quoting Jamal
A very valid point. I'll keep it in mind better from now on.
Quoting Jamal
Due to you're insightful critique I'm currently struggling with this question myself.
Thanks again for your views.
I'd rather be a poor horse
https://poorhorse.bandcamp.com/