Comment by weirdmantis69
11 hours ago
I'm very curious about this because even tho we need to preserve democracy, some elements of meritocracy also seem needed. Obviously as Xi's latest purges show, there is some politics to it as well, but China does seem to do a fairly good job of meritocracy in the bureaucracy.
It is important to remember that meritocracy isn't a binary, it is a spectrum. Just having exams based upon literacy and ability to understand poetry about flowers for bureaucratic positions that do paperwork is more meritocratic than just a literal aristocracy and ensures literacy, but it still isn't necessarily the most relevant ability to actual ability to perform the job. Then there is the question if office politics qualify as actual job skill or is just a derailment of merit.
Furthermore there are complications with unequal resources and means of training. Not just from some families having more money, but also from more knowledge. Children who are read to are more likely to be literate, family businesses, and all that. The unequal resources raises deeper questions about what is the origin of merit.
The real world is messy like that.