Comment by aspenmayer

> meritocracy is a comforting lie.

Meritocracy used to be a dirty word, before my time, of course, but for different reasons than you may think. Think about the racial quotas in college admissions and you’ll maybe see why the powers that be didn’t want merit to be a determining factor at that time.

Now that the status quo is in charge of college admissions, we don’t need those quotas generally, and yet meritocracy still can’t save us. The problem of merit is that we rarely need the best person for a given job, and those with means can be groomed their entire life to do that job, if it’s profitable enough. Work shouldn’t be charity either, as work needs to get done, after all, and it’s called work instead of charity or slavery for good reasons, but being too good at your job at your current pay rate can make you unpromotable, which is a trap just as hard to see as the trap of meritocracy.

Meritocracy is ego-stroking writ large if you get picked, just so we can remind you that you’re just the best one for our job that applied, and we can replace you at any time, likely for less money.