Against Meritocracy

You might want to tag this post with "philosophy", especially now that tags are actually functional as filters.

I'm not sure why you went all around the garden with your etymological analysis of the origins of the word "meritocracy", and why you made a point of saying "I haven't done the research of scouring many books for where and when this word is used, or who qualify as the top philosophes [sic] discussing it". It took me only a few minutes to check the meaning of "meritocracy" on the internet. For example, there's a whole article on Wikipedia about it. Rather than making up your own definitions, and inferring stuff from discussions, you could have informed yourself quite quickly – and avoided falling into the traps of the etymological fallacy and arguing against a strawman.

This lack of research and understanding undermines your whole essay.

One thing you might have learned if you had done a few minutes' research is that "mereō" means "earn". Yes, to merit something is to deserve it – but it specifically means to deserve it by earning it. It's not just handed to someone on a silver platter: they have to work for it. You even observe this in your footnotes, but "I didn't bother mentioning it because I don't think it relevant to my arguments against meritocracy whether the attributes are innate or acquired." Unfortunately for your essay, this distinction is extremely relevant. The difference between choosing someone as a ruler for their innate attributes or for their acquired attributes is important.

For instance, "meritocracy" in the sense of rule by people who have worked to earn the privilege of ruling is in no way similar to the meaning of "aristocracy". Aristocracy is a form of rule by people chosen because of innate attributes: what family they were born into. Meritocracy is a form of rule by people chosen because of acquired attributes – specifically in the sense of working to acquire those attributes to earn the privilege of ruling. Aristocrats did not earn the right to rule.

You point out that "In the section Problems with Classical Use, I made the mistake of using the word best each time instead of deserving." – and then say this was deliberate. You pointed out the wrong mistake: you should have used the word "earned" instead of "deserving".

Your essay argued against the concept that "all [meritocracy] does is describe those who deserve to rule as ruling" – when that's not the case at all.

At one point, you say meritocracy means "That the best individual is the best ruler. Might makes right and might must be submitted to." That's a big jump, from "best" to "mightiest". Noone equates "merit" with "power". Remember that "merit" means "to earn", not "be more mighty than".

Then, a lot of your essay is arguing against the concept of rule itself, rather than meritocratic rule specifically. All your arguments could be directed at any form of rule, not just meritocratic rule. I'll admit that I recalled your username from your post about anarchic preparations for disaster, so I knew you were an anarchist. You're not against meritocratic rule, as such, you're against any rule – and that came through strongly in your essay. You didn't argue against meritocratic rulers, you argued against all rulers.

Half your essay focussed on defining "meritocracy" wrongly, and the other half didn't even address meritocracy.

Also… why did you feel the need to define "circles"?

EDIT: typos

I'm going to make a few short points:

1. People usually discuss meritocracy in terms of an organization or society, not as a government type.
2. Meritocratic organizations are generally more effective since rewarding competence encourages it. Also, you want people with more power, and thus more potential to bungle things, to be the competent ones in an organization.
3. I don't think meritocracy is moral on its own. I think meritocratic (as opposed to equal) systems are only justified if they have a positive effect on society as a whole. I think most meritocratic systems are good though.
4. One issue with meritocracy is that some organizations people think are meritocratic aren't.
5. People sometimes say things like "Rich people were just born with rich parents, they didn't earn their success, it was given to them" to argue that society is unjust. I think this is a poor argument, since poverty isn't any more acceptable if the poor were dumber or less ruthless or less hardworking than the rich.

You probably agree with a lot of these points? I couldn't understand the entirety of your essay.