Targeting Meritocracy

A defense of 'meritocracy' against a wave of anti-meritocracy pieces. Core reframe: meritocracy isn't about smart people DESERVING rewards (the desert framing that critics like de Boer attack) — it's consequentialist: you want the best surgeon operating on you and the best decision-maker running the Fed, regardless of desert. And the real fix the critics won't name is to SEPARATE education from merit: promote by demonstrated ability, not credentials (Triplebyte's no-resume coding test; General Grant graduated bottom-half of West Point; Kasparov's merely-high IQ) so working-class people stuck below degree-holding-but-incompetent managers can rise. Argues we should reclaim 'meritocracy' as decision-by-merit (vs by wealth/class/education), not cede the word to describe the credentialist system it's being blamed for.

Quality 73 · Strong. Strong (73): a memorable, much-cited reframe (meritocracy as consequentialism-not-desert; education != merit) with vivid examples; held FIRM below Excellent as a tight single-argument reclaim-the-word essay.

Claude’s paradigm shift 54 · Moderate. Moderate (54): the desert-vs-consequentialism distinction and the separate-education-from-merit prescription are a fresh, clarifying contribution.

Real-world impact 3 · Moderate. Moderate (3): circulates in meritocracy/credentialism debates; discourse-level footprint.