## 1. Meritocracy: A Brief History



By tradition, Michael Young is credited with coining
"meritocracy" for his 1958 satire, *The Rise of the
Meritocracy*. In fact, the term appeared in print two years
earlier: In Jean Floud's "Sociology and Education",
Alan Fox's "Class and Equality", and Paul Lamartine
Yates's "Fairer Shares". Young claimed to have
invented it, which is certainly possible given that all four were
English academics who moved in similar, leftist circles. While only
Young explained what he meant by "meritocracy" in any
detail (and his sentiments towards it were mixed), for these
academics, the term had a negative connotation.



Now it has been claimed that "meritocracy" first appeared
in Hannah Arendt's "1954" article "The Crisis
in Education". And there are copies of this article, so dated,
circulating on the Internet which include the term. However,
"The Crisis in Education" came out in 1958 (and was based
on "a lecture delivered at Bremen, May 13, 1958").
Further, "meritocracy" does not appear in that original
version of Arendt's article. It does appear in edited reprints
of it (e.g., Arendt 1961).



Only the briefest survey of the history of meritocracy can be provided
here. For the ideas that government should be populated by the
meritorious, and that a just distribution is merit-based, are
ubiquitous. As Louis Pojman says,



> 
> 
> it is interesting to observe how deeply the notion of justice as
> desert or merit is embedded in human history. It seems a
> prereflective, basic idea of primordial or Ur-justice. One finds it
> grounded in every known culture and religion. (1999: 90)
> 
> 
> 



(Pojman surveys some history; Wooldridge 2021 is more
comprehensive.)



There is an Eastern meritocratic tradition which has its roots in
Confucius (551-479 BC). This tradition has influenced political
and social institutions in Asia and beyond and remains vibrant
 (SS3.1).
 (Meritocratic notions are found elsewhere in ancient Chinese thought,
too; e.g., the Mohists [c. 400 BC] sought to "elevate the
worthy" into government for utilitarian reasons. See Pines
2013.)



The core ideas of this tradition are found in Confucius, Mencius
(372-289 BC), and Xunzi (c. 310-c. 235 BC). In short: The
purpose of government is to promote the well-being and virtue of the
people. That requires that political power be wielded not on the basis
of noble blood--the prevailing system--but virtue and
talent. Political leaders serve as role models and sage
decision-makers, and to do that they must be meritorious.



Such a system will create hierarchies. For these meritocrats, that is
not a problem. Indeed, it is natural and welcome:



> 
> 
> That things are unequal is a matter of fact.... If you rank them
> the same, it will bring confusion to the world. If a roughly finished
> shoe sells at the same price as a finely finished one, who would make
> the latter? ... How can one govern a state in this way?
> (*Mencius*, 3A.4, trans. Bai [2020: 103])
> 
> 
> 



The most famous realization of the Eastern meritocratic tradition was
the Imperial Examinations, which began in China during the Sui Dynasty
(AD 581-618). Until that point, entry into the state bureaucracy
was mainly controlled *via* nepotism and aristocratic
influence. (Although there was some openness to granting political
power to competent and virtuous people, even if they came from the
lower class, since the Qin Dynasty [226-206 BC]. For a
discussion of meritocratic practices before the Imperial Examinations,
see Wang 2017.) The Imperial Examinations replaced, to some extent,
that route to power with a single, impartial, rigorous examination,
which was open to the public. Although the Imperial Examinations were
discontinued in the early twentieth century, similar civil service
examinations proliferated, and today are used world-wide (including in
China).



The Eastern meritocratic tradition is largely concerned with
governance. It does not hold that other social goods, like
non-political jobs or income, should be distributed on the basis of
merit. And its justification is largely consequentialist: People will
be more virtuous, and better cared-for, if they are ruled by the
meritorious. Although some meritocratic institutions, like the
Imperial Examinations, might have laudable side-effects like improving
social mobility, they are not generally justified on those
grounds.



Plato's (c. 428-c. 348 BC) meritocratic political theory
(found primarily in the *Laws*, *Republic*, and
*Statesman*) is similarly focused on governance. His argument
for meritocracy and against democracy is simple: Managing a state is
hard. It requires specific skills, like bravery, sobriety,
graciousness, and love of wisdom. These skills are not found among the
common people or the wealthy. If political power were entrusted to
them, the "ship of state" (*Republic*
488a-89c) would run aground. Not to mention, the
sailors--democratically-elected leaders--are always
squabbling. Only a "true pilot"--a
*philosopher-king*--can safely guide his ship to its
destination. (See also, e.g., *Republic* 412a-e, 473c-d, and
484a *ff.*)



How Plato justifies meritocracy is a debated matter of interpretation.
On one interpretation, meritocracy is desirable for its good
consequences; to wit, it brings justice and happiness to the state
(and, by analogy, citizens' souls). On another interpretation,
meritocracy *constitutes* justice and happiness, which are
intrinsically desirable. (On this interpretive issue, see, e.g., Brown
2003 [2017].)



Aristotle (384-322 BC) is different in that his concern (in the
*Nicomachean Ethics* and the *Politics*) is the
distribution of social goods generally--not just political
offices. And his justification for merit-based distribution is
squarely deontological. (At least, that is a common interpretation. On
Aristotle's theory of distributive justice, see, e.g., Keyt
1991.)



Justice is, for Aristotle, giving people what they deserve, and this
happens when they are rewarded in proportion to their merit. (This
view is arguably presaged by Plato in the *Laws* [757c] and the
*Republic* [331e *ff.*]) Indeed, for Aristotle this is
not just correct but obvious: "All men agree that what is just
in distribution must be according to merit
[axia]" (*NE*, 1131a, trans. Ross
[1925]).



Aristotelian desert defines a notion of equality, known as
*proportional equality*. (It is most frequently studied within
social psychology, under the heading *equity theory*.) What
Aristotle seeks to equalize are the *ratios* of merits to
rewards between persons.



For example, suppose that there are 100 units of some good to be
distributed among 3 persons. Persons *A* and *B* are
equally meritorious; *C* is twice as meritorious as they are.
Justice is done by giving 25 units of the good to *A*, 25 units
to *B*, and 50 units to *C*. Note that an equal
distribution is just only in the special case in which all recipients
are equally meritorious.



Now, what is merit? For Aristotle, this is determined by the nature of
the thing being distributed:



> 
> 
> When a number of flute players are equal in their art, there is no
> reason why those of them who are better born should have better flutes
> given to them ... the superior instrument should be reserved for
> him who is the superior artist. (*Politics*, 1282b, trans.
> Jowett [1885])
> 
> 
> 



Meritocratic ideas are found in Islamic philosophy, in which scholars
developed political theories compatible with divinely revealed Islamic
law (*Shari'a*). For example,
Al-Farabi (also known as Alpharabius, AD c.
870-c. 950) sought a political system which would bring
happiness and perfection to the people living under it. Democracy
could not do this (although it had, for al-Farabi, some
admirable features). What is required, rather, is (i) a ruler who is a
hybrid philosopher-king and prophet-*imam*, with
qualifications drawn from both Platonic and Islamic thought, and (ii)
an elaborated hierarchy between citizens. Similar ideas may be found
in the work of Ibn Sina (Avicenna, AD c. 980-1037),
Ibn Bajja (Avempace, AD c. 1085-c. 1139), and Ibn Rushd
(Averroes, AD 1126-1198).



Francesco Patrizi of Siena (AD 1413-1494) argued that
merit--understood as virtue--was a precondition for the
legitimate exercise of political power. For Patrizi, a meritocratic
state is justified, stable, and functional. Further, the state is
responsible for inculcating virtue in its citizens so that they are
sufficiently meritorious to participate in government. This requires,
among other things, a public literacy program. Patrizi designed his
political institutions to ensure that (i) only meritorious citizens
(i.e., the educated and experienced) would be chosen as magistrates
and senators, and (ii) wealthy and powerful families could not corrupt
the political process. (On the almost-forgotten Patrizi, see Hankins
2023.)



Meritocracy was an important Enlightenment value. Thinkers in Europe
and elsewhere sought grounds for regarding people as individuals
(rather than undifferentiated group members) and replacing monarchical
politics.



For instance, Article VI of the *Declaration of the Rights of Man
and of the Citizen* (1789) says:



> 
> 
> All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, shall be equally
> eligible to all dignities, public positions and occupations, according
> to their ability, and without distinction except that of their virtues
> and talents.
> 
> 
> 



This is almost precisely the meritocratic rule for distributing jobs
 (SS4.2).



Napoleon lived up to this principle, adopting the slogan *la
carriere est ouverte aux talents*--careers open to
talents--and ascribing his success (not entirely, of course) to
the meritocratic nature of his reign.



Across the Atlantic, Thomas Jefferson desired a "natural
aristocracy" for his new nation, in which hierarchies would
reflect "virtue and talents" rather than "wealth and
birth". Indeed, Jefferson regarded this natural aristocracy as
"the most precious gift of nature, for the ... government
of society" (1813).



There is also a meritocratic ideal of justice associated with the
United States. This is the *American Dream*, expressed by the
person who coined the phrase thus:



> 
> 
> It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of
> a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to
> attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and
> be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the
> fortuitous circumstances of birth or position. (James Adams 1931:
> 404)
> 
> 
> 



The suggestion is that a just state is one in which there is equal
opportunity and people are judged on their merits
 (SS4).


## 2. Conceptual Issues


### 2.1 What is merit?



"Merit" connotes worth, quality, virtue, excellence, and
more. If we are to build a society upon merit, as meritocrats desire,
it seems necessary to understand exactly what merit is. Yet conceptual
analysis of merit is nascent (see Clavero Garcia 2023; Vlastos
[1962] also offers some comments).



One thing that is clear is that merit is a contextual phenomenon, as
Aristotle suggested
 (SS1).
 We cannot answer the question of whether some person (book, painting,
etc.) is meritorious unless we have a context in mind. If, in the
middle of a discussion about the all-time great baseball players, one
asks, "was Albert Einstein meritorious?", the appropriate
answer is "no". To be sure, we talk about people being
meritorious *simpliciter*. We say things like, "Einstein
was a meritorious man". But in these cases we understand the
context implicitly.



It is also possible to broadly condemn a person while conceding his
merit within a narrow context. One may say that Hitler had merit as an
artist without making any commitments to his merit in other contexts,
or to his overall merit.



A crucial conceptual issue is the relationship between merit and its
real-world effects. Especially when it comes to governance
 (SS3),
 meritocracy is frequently justified by the good outcomes it creates.
And this much seems incontrovertible: All else equal, a meritorious
politician will make higher-quality decisions than an unmeritorious
one.



But this is not *necessarily* true. Merit, which is internal,
is distinct from the outcomes which issue from it. The outcomes are
external, although they are sometimes used as *evidence* of
merit. A Nobel Prize in physics is good evidence that Jones is a
meritorious physicist. But it is no guarantee: Jones could have stolen
the research that won him the Prize, falsely publishing it under his
own name.



As Hume puts in the *Treatise*:



> 
> 
> The external performance has no merit. We must look within to find the
> moral quality. This we cannot do directly; and therefore fix our
> attention on actions, as on external signs. But these actions are
> still considered as signs; and the ultimate object of our praise and
> approbation is the motive, that produc'd them. (1739-40:
> 3.2.1)
> 
> 
> 



An example, which we will return to, illustrates the importance of the
merit-outcomes distinction. Suppose that Daryl and John are applying
for jobs at the widget factory. Daryl is more skilled than John, works
faster, is more careful, more collegial, and so on. But this factory
is filled with racists and Daryl belongs to the disfavored race. As a
result, Daryl would perform worse--make fewer widgets per
hour--than John would. (This is a case of *taste
discrimination*--Becker 1957.)



Observe that, conceptually, Daryl remains more meritorious than John
even though hiring John would generate better outcomes. Those who
support hiring John rather than Daryl--utilitarians,
say--would not claim otherwise. They would simply say that here
there are good reasons to hire the less meritorious applicant.



Ronald Dworkin once held a contrary view:



> 
> 
> If a black skin will, as a matter of regrettable fact, enable another
> doctor to do a different medical job better, then that black skin is
> by the same token "merit" as well. (1985: 299)
> 
> 
> 



But later he recanted (as Segall [2012] points out):



> 
> 
> I do not mean ... that black color is in itself a virtue or an
> aspect of merit.... We do not count a person's height as a
> virtue or a merit. But someone who is tall may just for that reason be
> better able to contribute, on a basketball court, to one of a
> university's traditional goals, and in the same way, though for
> sadder reasons, someone who is black may for that reason be better
> able to contribute to its other goals, in the classroom and dormitory
> and in the course of his or her later career. (2000: 404)
> 
> 
> 



The meritocrat must decide whether merit-based distribution is
desirable on consequentialist or categorical grounds. If the former,
then meritocracy will be valuable only contingently. For at least in
principle, merit-based distribution may lead to suboptimal outcomes.
On other hand, meritocrats who say that merit-based distribution is
categorically desirable--because, for example, it gives people
what they deserve
 (SS4)--must
 concede that their system will not always produce the best
results.


### 2.2 Merit and desert



Merit's closest conceptual cousin is *desert*, the
concept underlying commonplace claims like "Joe deserves the
job" and "workers deserve higher wages". As we shall
see
 (SS4.1),
 some meritocrats explicitly invoke desert in their theories of
justice. And desert is implicit in much other work on meritocracy.
(Seminal research on desert includes Feinberg 1963, Kleinig 1971, and
Sher 1987.)



There is no consensus about the precise link between merit and desert.
Thomas Mulligan (2018b) argues that merit is an important basis for
desert and thereby has moral force. Jeppe von Platz (2022) uses
"desert" to describe an agent's character and
"merit" to characterize the real-world effects (e.g.,
achievements) of that character. John Lucas (1980) uses the terms in
just the opposite way. Owen McLeod says that merit is "quite a
specific kind of desert" (1999: 67). Pojman disagrees:
"Merit is a broader concept, the genus of which desert is the
species" (1999: 86). No attempt has yet been made to evaluate
these disparate views, let alone reconcile them. Observe, too, that
merit and desert are sometimes used synonymously--we might say
that Sam "deserves the prize" or, apparently equivalently,
Sam "merits the prize".



Two of desert's conceptual features are especially relevant to
meritocracy. First, desert is a *pre-institutional* notion.
What a person deserves is not, and cannot be, determined by the rules
(organizations, practices, etc.) governing distribution. Rather,
desert should determine those rules.



Imagine a race in which all blonde runners get a 10 second head start.
The race is run, and a blonde beats a brunette by a nose.
Institutionally--within the rules of this race--the blonde
should get the medal. *But she does not deserve it.* The
brunette deserves the medal; she was fastest. For the desertist, the
brunette ought, morally, to receive it. The blonde is merely
"entitled" to the medal. Further, for the desertist, this
is a bad race; its rules ought to be changed so that institutional
entitlements line up with deserts.



In contrast, a libertarian view of justice denies that there is a
deeper, fiducial standard against which the institution can be judged
 (SS5.4).
 So long as all the runners freely chose to participate in this race
(and weren't misled about the rules, etc.) the blonde ought,
morally, to receive the medal. The fact that rules do not ensure that
the fastest runner receive the medal is, for the libertarian,
irrelevant to justice. (For discussion of desert-based versus
entitlement-based arguments, see Olsaretti 2003a.)



Second, desert is often thought to contain principles of
*aboutness* and *fitness*. The aboutness principle holds
that the basis for desert must be "about" (somehow
construed) the subject of a desert-claim for that claim to be *bona
fide*. One cannot, for example, deserve prison on the basis of
someone else's crimes. One common construal of aboutness is
*responsibility*--if a person is not responsible for a
crime, he cannot deserve prison for it.



Arguments abound about the influence of luck on people's
character and achievements. Luck plausibly severs aboutness and
thereby people's claims to deserve on the basis of their merit.
If Jones is the most meritorious applicant because of his hard work,
he has a strong case to deserve the job. If Jones is meritorious
because he had the good luck of being raised in a rich family, things
are murkier.



The fitness principle holds that there is a natural connection between
the basis for desert and the object being awarded. If a person commits
a crime, he deserves prison--not a medal. Prison fits crime; a
medal is unfitting.



As will be discussed in
 SS4,
 meritocrats debate what the appropriate understanding of
"merit" is when it comes to distributing political
offices, jobs, income, and other goods. Does a just, meritocratic wage
reflect a person's *skill*? His *effort*? The
*contribution* he makes? Or is "merit" conceptually
primitive, unable to be defined in any of these terms?


### 2.3 Equal opportunity



A classic example of meritocracy (perhaps first used by Lyndon Johnson
in a 4 June 1965 address at Howard University) is a footrace. Justice
is done--the race is fair--only if the medal is given to the
runner who crosses the finish line first (and not, say, to the runner
with the lightest skin). However, that is a necessary, not a
sufficient, condition for justice. For if some runners had a head
start--if there was unequal *opportunity*--then the
race was unjust, and the "winner" has no moral claim on
the medal. But if the medal is awarded purely on the basis of merit,
and against a background of equal opportunity, then the winner
deserves that medal, and justice has been done.



In a meritocracy there is an "equal starting line" (or, to
use another common, athletic metaphor, a "level playing
field") from which people compete for scarce social goods. That
equal starting line, when coupled with a merit-based distributive
rule, provides a full theory of distributive justice. (For more on the
connection between meritocracy and equal opportunity, see Arneson 2002
[2015], Daniels 1978, Mulligan 2018b, and Goldman 1977.)



Sometimes the aforementioned idea of equal opportunity is referred to
as "fair" or "substantive" equal opportunity,
and the merit-based distributive rule as "formal" equal
opportunity. When things are put in those terms, a meritocracy is
simply a society in which there is equal opportunity (fair and
formal).



While the equal starting line metaphor is handwavy, equal opportunity
has been made rigorous (see Roemer 1998). And the ideal has clear
ramifications for public policy, such as estate/inheritance taxes (so
people don't accrue wealth on the basis of family circumstances
instead of merit) and public education (so that the children of poor
families receive the same quality education as the children of the
rich).



There are two salient debates within the equal opportunity literature
important to meritocracy. The first is whether there is a moral
difference between (i) *social* advantage, like being born into
a rich family, and (ii) *natural* advantage--like
intelligence (important: insofar as it is genetically- rather than
environmentally-derived). The meritocrat is committed to nullifying
the former through equal opportunity, but what about the latter?
(Nullifying natural advantage would consist in providing extra
resources to those who are naturally disadvantaged.)



The second debate involves the extent to which the state may interfere
in family affairs to establish equal opportunity (see Fishkin 1983).
Even with robust "external" measures (estate taxes, public
education), different families will show different degrees of care for
their children. That will lead to some inequality of opportunity.



Indeed, different *kinds* of care--not just parental
attention versus neglect--may lead to inequalities of
opportunity. One family may inculcate a love and aptitude for music in
their child; another family may stress sports. The philosophical
issues here are to explain what is problematic and what is not, and to
draw the line between the government's interest in establishing
equal opportunity and the liberty of parents to raise their children
as they see fit.


## 3. Meritocratic Governance



This section and the following one are the core of this entry. They
address the two principal senses in which meritocracy has arisen
within
 philosophy.[1]
 This section considers meritocracy as a form of government.



Terminologically, these systems are referred to as "political
meritocracies" in the Eastern philosophical literature and
"epistocracies" in the Western literature. The latter term
is due to David Estlund (2003) and stresses the superior
knowledge--*episteme*--which meritocratic political
rulers possess. This entry follows the former usage.



Three broad questions face proposals for meritocratic governance. The
first asks what constitutes merit or, equivalently, "who are the
meritocrats?" The meritocratic class could consist of citizens
who are *competent* (somehow defined); who are more likely than
others to produce good political results (which could be different
from the class of competent
 citizens--SS2.1);
 who are best able to *represent* their constituents; or
something else.



The second question asks, "how should the meritocrats
rule?" It is not enough to show that there is a well-defined
meritocratic class. A particular form of government, harnessing the
meritocrats, must be elaborated.



The third question asks, "is meritocracy justifiable?"
That is, proponents of meritocracy must defend their system against
the charge that it is unfair. Discussion of these challenges is
delayed until
 SS5.



With one deontological exception (to be discussed), meritocratic
political systems are justified on consequentialist grounds.
Meritocrats claim, that is, that their systems would produce better
political outcomes--more justice and prosperity, say--than
prevailing political systems do.



Many contemporary meritocrats are motivated by a perception that
contemporary democracy is dysfunctional. They adduce a range of
empirical research: voters don't know basic political facts
(e.g., Somin 2013); they treat politics as a sport, in which what is
important is not achieving good social outcomes or even promoting
their own interests but that their "team" win (Lenz 2012);
they are afflicted by *motivated reasoning*, seeking out
evidence to confirm existing beliefs and generating specious grounds
to ignore disconfirming evidence (Flynn, Nyhan, & Reifler 2017);
and more. (The relevant research was pioneered by Converse [1964].
Brennan [2016] provides a contemporary survey.)


### 3.1 New Confucian meritocracy



In recent years, scholars have looked to the Confucian tradition
 (SS1)
 to inspire and ground political theories. (See, e.g., Bai 2020; Bell
2006 and 2015; Bell & Li 2013; Bell & Wang 2020; Chan 2014;
and Jiang 2013. The reader may also consult recent special issues of
*Culture and Dialogue* [2020, volume 8, issue 2] and
*Philosophy & Social Criticism* [2020, volume 46, issue 9],
devoted to New Confucian meritocracy.) Incidentally, there has been
insufficient interaction between the epistocracy literature and this
one. That is an intersection ripe for research.



This literature is part political theory and part comparative
politics. New Confucian meritocrats frequently point to China's
stability and economic success and contrast it with contemporary
democratic dysfunction. That said, it should not be thought that the
above-cited scholars, nor New Confucian meritocrats broadly, are
apologists for the Chinese Communist Party. They are not.



These theories incorporate some liberal democratic features while
rejecting others, like robust freedom of speech or the "one
person, one vote" principle. All deny the truth and usefulness
of regarding citizens as equals when it comes to voting. New Confucian
meritocratic theories are, thus, best understood as hybrids of
classical Confucianism and contemporary democratic theory.



They vary in their particulars. For example, Daniel Bell (2015),
drawing from an ideal informing contemporary Chinese politics, calls
for "democracy at the bottom, experimentation in the middle, and
meritocracy at the top" (2015: 9). Bell's meritocracy is
purely *political* (he rejects meritocratic distribution of the
sort discussed in
 SS4),
 and mainly applicable to the highest political offices. Nevertheless,
the political system is structured to funnel the most meritorious
citizens to its apex (by using, e.g., examinations for public
officials).



Tongdong Bai (2020), drawing from Mencius, endorses the
"liberal" part of liberal democracy but not the democratic
part. He argues for a government that is "for the people, of the
people, but not by the people" (2020: 32). In Bai's hybrid
regime, liberal features like the rule of law and human rights do not
emerge from Western values of individuality and equality but from
classical Confucian values. Bai concedes that, so grounded, these
features



> 
> 
> may be more contextual and less absolute than the rights derived from
> an asocial and autonomous [i.e., Western] conception of the
> individual. (2020: 259)
> 
> 
> 



Democracy should be rejected, according to Bai, because it is less
legitimate than a meritocratic alternative. Political authority
derives from service to the people, and democracy is not doing that
well (because of, e.g., the aforementioned voter
ignorance/irrationality). Bai invokes a notion common among
meritocrats: There are real differences in virtue, intelligence, etc.
between people; these differences render us appropriate for different
positions in social and political hierarchies; and that sorting is in
fact desirable (see also Bell & Wang 2020).



The idea that liberal features might emerge from Confucian principles
has been most fully explored by Joseph Chan (2014), whose
perfectionistic theory appeals to the Confucian conception of the good
life. Chan describes this conception as one that



> 
> 
> takes material well-being, moral self-cultivation, and virtuous social
> relationships as constituents ... with the ideal of sagehood as
> the highest good. (2014: 44)
> 
> 
> 



Chan's preferred political system is one in which *this*
account of the good life is best promoted. In his view, such a system
will contain both liberal features, such as human rights, and
meritocratic features. As regards the latter, Chan recommends a
bicameral legislature, with one chamber chosen democratically and the
other filled meritocratically (elite citizens selecting from a pool of
experienced public servants).



Like Bai, Chan's affinity for liberal features, like human
rights, is not categorical. We do not possess rights because we are
human; we possess them because they are instrumentally useful in
promoting the Confucian good life. In fact, for Chan they are ever
more contingent than that: They are merely a "fallback
apparatus" for the non-ideal circumstances we find ourselves in.
In ideal circumstances, in which all citizens were virtuous and able
to resolve disputes through mediation, human rights would be
unnecessary, even destructive.



In addition to the broad challenges that New Confucian meritocrats,
*qua* meritocrats, face
 (SS5),
 there are detractors within the Confucian tradition. Some
"Confucian democrats" argue that democratic political
participation is essential for cultivating Confucian virtues (see,
e.g., Angle 2012, Hall & Ames 1999, and Tan 2004). These virtues
include humaneness (*ren*, Ren ), wisdom (*zhi*,
Zhi ), righteousness (*yi*, Yi ), ritual propriety
(*li*, Li ), and integrity (*xin*,
Xin )--the "Five Constant Virtues".



Sungmoon Kim's (2017 and 2018) *pragmatic Confucian
democracy* holds that democracy has instrumental power which
meritocracy lacks. Democracy better promotes



> 
> 
> legitimacy and order acquired through an effective and sustained
> coordination of complex social, economic, and political interactions
> among citizens who have profound moral and economic disagreement.
> (2018: 6)
> 
> 
> 



Democracy, that is, is better able to cope with the disagreement and
value-pluralism which marks contemporary political life.



Elena Ziliotti (forthcoming) argues on epistemic grounds: Because
social well-being is an essential Confucian value, and because
democracy is a better instrument toward that end than meritocracy is,
democracy is more faithful to the Confucian tradition.


### 3.2 Restricted suffrage



A natural meritocratic approach is to limit political power to
citizens who are sufficiently competent. American women did not secure
a right to vote until 1920, with the passage of the Nineteenth
Amendment to the Constitution. John Adams explains his reasoning
why:



> 
> 
> Their delicacy renders them unfit for practice and experience in the
> great businesses of life, and the hardy enterprises of war, as well as
> the arduous cares of state. (1776)
> 
> 
> 



Unsurprisingly--given its history--restricted suffrage has
found little philosophical purchase. But it's worth remembering
that we continue to deprive classes of people of political power
without outcry. Children, for example, cannot vote. In Adams'
words, they "have not judgment or Will of their own".
(Lopez-Guerra [2014] argues for a full expansion of the
suffrage, to include children.)



Jason Brennan (2011) is the salient exception to philosophers'
resistance to restricted suffrage. He argues that citizens have a
right "not to be subject to high stakes decisions made by
incompetent and morally unreasonable people" (2011: 702), and
that this right is violated under universal suffrage.



Brennan analogizes electorates to juries: We would think a
defendant's rights had been violated if he were convicted by an
ignorant, irrational, or morally unreasonable jury. And since
real-world electorates are, according to Brennan, ignorant,
irrational, and morally unreasonable, those affected by their
decisions find their rights violated.



Brennan's argument is distinctive not only because it defends
restricted suffrage but because it gives a *deontological*
justification for political meritocracy. The other justifications
surveyed in this section are consequentialist. While such a
justification for restricted suffrage might be given, Brennan's
concern is the alleged rights-violations that universal suffrage
inflicts.


### 3.3 Plural voting



Perhaps the most famous meritocratic proposal in the Western
literature is John Stuart Mill's (1859a, 1859b, 1861) *plural
voting*. Mill's proposal integrates his liberal desire for
universal suffrage with an anti-egalitarian streak:



> 
> 
> If it is asserted that all persons ought to be equal in every
> description of right recognised by society, I answer, not until all
> are equal in worth as human beings. It is the fact, that one person is
> *not* as good as another; and it is reversing all the rules of
> rational conduct, to attempt to raise a political fabric on a
> supposition which is at variance with fact. (1859b: 23)
> 
> 
> 



(Notice how similar this sentiment is to Mencius'
 [SS1].)



Mill's proposal is simple: Everybody gets a vote (thereby
satisfying universal suffrage) and some people get more than one
(because they are, in some sense, of greater "worth").
Mill offers several justifications for plural voting (see Dale Miller
2015), including--unsurprisingly for the utilitarian
Mill--that it will produce better political consequences.



An immediate challenge facing the plural voting proponent is how to
specify voting weights. Mill (1859b: 25-26) gives one potential
specification:


* Unskilled laborers: 1 vote
* Skilled laborers: 2 votes
* Foremen and "superintendents of labor": 3 votes
* Farmers, manufacturers, and traders: 3-4 votes
* Professionals (e.g., lawyers, doctors, clergymen, "literary
men", artists, "public functionaries"): 5-6
votes
* University graduates and members of "learned
societies": At least as many votes as professionals.



While this assignment has *prima facie* plausibility, Mill does
not provide a rigorous defense of it. It is surely sub-optimal (why 3
votes for foremen? Why not 2? Or 3.5?) And perhaps its *prima
facie* plausibility is misleading. Maybe professionals possess
biases which laborers do not, thereby making the former less likely
than the latter to vote well. (The same may be said of Harwood's
[1998] proposal.)



To overcome this difficulty, Mulligan (2018c) advances a statistical
approach to plural voting which attempts to rigorously derive optimal
voting weights from voting history. And Trevor Latimer's (2018)
"egalitarian" plural voting proceeds in two stages: The
first operates under "one person, one vote" and determines
voting weights; the second determines the substantive political
question using those (generally unequal) weights.



Two technical notes: First, some forms of plural voting may *de
facto* restrict the suffrage. For example, suppose that there are
four voters. Voters *A*, *B*, and *C* have 2
votes each. Voter *D* has 1 vote. There are no voter coalitions
in which *D*'s vote affects the result. He is effectively
disenfranchised. The flip-side of this is that plural voting is
compatible with democrats' treasured "one person, one
vote" principle: If voters are equally competent, a plural
voting system will grant them an equal number of votes.



Second, there is no unique assignment of voting weights. For example,
all weights in Mill's system may be multiplied by 2, with the
same results.


### 3.4 Limited epistocracy



The aforementioned proposals would radically change political
practice. As such, they invite a criticism that they are
insufficiently democratic
 (SS5.3).
 This has led some philosophers to develop "limited
epistocracies" which would improve political performance without
straying too far from the democratic status quo.



Perhaps, for example, we can provide extra political influence to
citizens who know "basic political facts" (Gibbons
2021)--facts which are both politically relevant and
uncontroversial, like candidates' policy platforms. Or perhaps
"specialized institutions" (Jeffrey 2018), like the World
Health Organization, can be granted unilateral--but narrow or
temporary--political power via the democratic process.



There is no obvious dividing line between democracy and political
meritocracy. All contemporary democracies seek to harness expertise,
albeit to different extents and through different processes. The U.S.
Senate, for example, was envisioned as a "portion of enlightened
citizens" (Madison 1787: Tuesday, June 26) to serve as a bulwark
against the "fickleness and passion" of the more
democratic House of Representatives. Institutions like that plausibly
qualify as limited epistocracies and might be defended on those
grounds.


### 3.5 Other approaches



Although Brennan has written in support of restricting the suffrage
 (SS3.2),
 his preferred form of governance is, apparently, what he calls
*government by simulated oracle* (see Brennan 2016):



> 
> 
> Every citizen may vote. When citizens vote, they (a) indicate their
> policy preferences or their preferred political outcomes, while (b)
> indicating their demographic information, and (c) taking a test of
> basic political knowledge. The government then uses data sets (a),
> (b), and (c) to determine, statistically, what a fully informed
> electorate would want, while correcting for the influence of race,
> income, sex, and/or other demographic factors on the vote. In short,
> government-by-simulated-oracle estimates what a demographically
> *identical* but *fully informed* electorate would want,
> and then implements that instead of what the uninformed electorate in
> fact wants. (Brennan 2018: 55-56)
> 
> 
> 



What ought to count is not voters' expressed
preferences--which are affected by ignorance, irrationality, and
the other dysfunctions which so trouble him and other
meritocrats--but their *enlightened preferences*. If I
cast a vote for *X* rather than *Y* because I hold false
beliefs or am biased, then perhaps my vote should accrue to *Y*
rather than *X*. For *Y* is what I would vote for, if
not for my ignorance or irrationality.



While there has been significant work on enlightened preferences in
economics and political science (e.g., Althaus 2003, Caplan 2007, and
Gilens 2012), Brennan has not explored this system in any detail.
(Ahlstrom-Vij [2022] does so, and thinks the system qualifies as
democratic, not meritocratic.) One challenge is that it's
unclear what is meant by demographic bias. Our political preferences
are shaped by myriad elements of our identity, including our
demographics. Evangelical Protestants are much more opposed to
abortion than adherents of other religions (Pew 2022). Is this bias of
the sort that must be neutralized? Or a predictable and *bona
fide* consequence of a deeper ideology?



A second strategy for dealing with the voter ignorance/irrationality
problem is distinguishing two political classes and assigning them
different roles. On the one hand there are regular citizens, who are
responsible for setting political goals and determining their
society's values. That is done democratically. On the other
hand, there are legislators and bureaucrats. They are responsible for
pursuing, in the manner they deem best, the ends identified by the
regular citizens.



The ignorance/irrationality problem is thus putatively solved: While
the latter task requires expertise which the public does not have, the
former task does not. Indeed, perhaps the former task is enabled by
the folk wisdom which legislators/bureaucrats lack. One is reminded of
William F. Buckley's quip:



> 
> 
> I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the telephone
> directory than by the Harvard University faculty. (Quoted in Meyer
> 1961: 143)
> 
> 
> 



This approach, which has come to be known as *values-only
voting* (Beerbohm 2012; Christiano 1996 & 2008), puts the
public and legislators/bureaucrats in a principal-agent relationship.
For instance, the public may decree, via the democratic process, that
the economy ought to be more equal. That goal is adopted by the
legislators/bureaucrats, who choose and implement the policies which,
in their superior judgment, will best promote it. In doing so, they
can avoid pitfalls which the general public might not, like levying a
luxury tax whose burden falls on workers.



As with Brennan's government by simulated oracle, there is a
dividing line problem here: What counts as an end and what counts as a
means and can they be distinguished? Dimitri Landa and Ryan Pevnick
give the example of a public that seeks to "minimize the
innocent loss of life" (2020: 10). In response, legislators
dutifully ban guns and abortion. It seems like a large portion of the
public would be dissatisfied with how "its vision" was
carried out. Landa and Pevnick also point out that under values-only
voting, citizens may be unable to exert sufficient oversight--an
example of a *principal/agent problem* which may afflict this
division of labor.



Another proposal, most fully explored by Claudio Lopez-Guerra
(2011, 2014, 2020), uses lotteries to reduce political influence from
the public broadly to a proper subset of it (see also Guerrero 2014;
Landemore 2020; and Saunders 2010 & 2012). In
Lopez-Guerra's envisioned system (which he does not
unreservedly endorse and which, he says, qualifies as democratic),
there is universal suffrage in the sense that virtually all citizens
are *eligible* to vote. But for any given election, not all do.
Some citizens are chosen at random to participate. The rest are
disenfranchised (for that election). The chosen citizens engage in an
"exhaustive informative program designed to acquaint them with
the alternatives regarding the ballot" (Lopez-Guerra
2011: 212). Then they cast their votes. That program ensures that all
citizens who actually exercise political influence are
well-informed.



In this way, all citizens are potential meritocrats, and the
meritocratic class--which changes from election to
election--is determined purely at random. All citizens,
regardless of intelligence, race, age, etc. have an equal chance to
exercise political influence.



A potential problem is the loss of aggregative power when the
electorate is reduced in this way. The primary justification for this
system is epistemic quality: We would get better political outcomes
under it, according to Lopez-Guerra, relative to the democratic
status quo. But one important argument in favor of the status quo
 (SS5.3)
 is that a large group of relatively incompetent voters may outperform
a small group of relatively competent voters. Under
Lopez-Guerra's system, the electorate is smaller but
competence is higher. Absent modeling it is unclear how it would
perform relative to democracy.


## 4. Meritocratic Justice



In its second sense, meritocracy is a theory of justice. It is a
competitor to egalitarianism (in its various forms--strict, luck,
Rawlsian, etc.), utilitarianism, libertarianism, and the other
theories of justice. A meritocrat in this sense is someone who
believes that a just state is a meritocracy.



Little work has been done on the relationship between
meritocracy's two senses--an approach to governance and a
theory of justice (although see Mulligan 2022)--and it is unclear
what, if any, connection there is between them. It certainly seems
coherent to believe (e.g.) both (i) social goods should be distributed
on the basis of merit and (ii) we should have a democratic, not a
meritocratic, approach to politics.



Now, theories of justice across the aforementioned traditions may
tentatively endorse meritocratic principles. For these principles may
be instrumentally useful in promoting their preferred ideal of
justice. For example, it is plausible that merit-based hiring
 (SS4.2)
 promotes the general welfare, to some extent. Thus, a utilitarian may
endorse meritocracy of that sort, instrumentally.



As Adam Swift and Gordon Marshall put this view,



> 
> 
> a meritocratic allocation of individuals to occupations can be
> justified on the grounds that a society in which people are doing what
> they are best able to do will be optimally productive, but a
> meritocratic allocation of rewards to individuals can not be justified
> on the grounds that such an allocation gives people what they deserve.
> (1997: 44)
> 
> 
> 



(See also Daniels 1978.)



This is certainly a defensible view of meritocracy's allure, and
it appears to be backed up empirically. As Roland Benabou puts
it,



> 
> 
> the analysis generally validates the common intuition that
> meritocracy, appropriately defined, is desirable ... on grounds
> of efficiency. (2000: 319)
> 
> 
> 



But this instrumental connection between merit and good consequences
is contingent
 (SS2.1).
 The most vocal proponents of meritocracy hold that there is a
*deontological* requirement to distribute on the basis of
 merit.[2]
 And so any good consequences are, at best, a happy side-effect of
adherence to a moral rule. But why does such a requirement exist?


### 4.1 Justification



While not endorsing it, Swift and Marshall previewed the principal
answer to that question: In a meritocracy, people get what they
deserve. And because, it is argued, justice is giving people what they
deserve, meritocracy is just. Meritocrats thus follow in the
Aristotelian tradition
 (SS1)
 of seeking to match social goods, like jobs and income, with facts
about the people who desire them, like their qualifications or
economic contributions.



Like desert-based approaches to justice broadly, meritocracy has not
been popular within contemporary philosophy. But there have been
defenders. David Miller (1999) gives "two cheers" to the
 ideal.[3]
 This qualification is rooted in Miller's *pluralistic*
view of justice. He identifies three "modes of human
interaction", with desert (meritocracy) governing one of them
(viz. "instrumental association"). (Principles of
*equality* and *need* govern the other two.)



Miller appeals to Aristotelian proportional equality
 (SS1)
 to ground the desertist portion of his theory. Understanding
"merit" as social contribution, he argues that a just
society rewards people in proportion to their contributions (or, in
the case of jobs, the qualities that will enable them to make
contributions).



> 
> 
> Hiring by merit is the policy that in general brings about the closest
> correspondence between individuals' contributions and their
> rewards.... Nepotism or discrimination is unfair because it
> predictably creates a state of affairs in which there is a discrepancy
> between deserts and income rewards. Moreover, the best-qualified
> candidate who is passed over can legitimately complain that she is the
> victim of an injustice through being prevented from earning rewards
> commensurate with her potential contribution. (Miller 1999: 166)
> 
> 
> 



Mulligan's (2018b) meritocratic theory of justice is, in
contrast to Miller's, *monistic*. That is, Mulligan
claims that justice is a matter of desert, and only a matter of
desert. And doing justice to people--giving them what they
deserve--is about establishing equal opportunity and judging them
on their merits alone.



Mulligan advances several justifications for meritocracy, but most
salient is meritocracy's intuitive appeal. People *feel*
that meritocratic distribution is just, and this sentiment appears
stable across race, gender, socioeconomic class, political persuasion,
and culture (cf.
 SS6).
 The research adduced comes from equity theory
 (SS1),
 experimental economics (e.g., Almas, Cappelen, & Tungodden
2020; Cappelen, Sorensen, & Tungodden 2010; Frohlich,
Oppenheimer, & Kurki 2004), the child development literature
(Baumard, Mascaro, & Chevallier 2012; Kanngiesser & Warneken
2012; Sloane, Baillargeon, & Premack 2014), evolutionary
psychology (Aaroe & Petersen 2014; Baumard, Andre,
& Sperber 2013; Petersen 2012), neuroeconomics (Cappelen, Eichele,
et al. 2014; Vostroknutov, Tobler, & Rustichini 2012), and other
fields of empirical study.



Other justifications for meritocratic norms have been given,
independent of comprehensive theories of justice. George Sher (1987)
gives one which is grounded in *autonomy* (sometimes put in
terms of *respect* or *dignity*). When we distribute a
scarce good on the basis of merit, we appeal only to attributes which
constitute persons, and in particular those persons who are competing
for the good. These attributes include skills, talents, and
preferences. Meritocratic distribution thus provides people maximal
control over their lives (or shows them maximal respect/dignity).



> 
> 
> When we hire by merit, we abstract from all facts about the applicants
> except their ability to perform well at the relevant tasks.... We
> treat them as agents whose purposeful acts can make a difference in
> the world.... Selecting by merit is a way of taking seriously the
> potential agency of both the successful and the unsuccessful
> applicants. (Sher 1987: 121)
> 
> 
> 



(See also Mason 2006 and Varga 2016. Dobos 2016 provides an overview
of justifications for merit-based hiring.)



Another idea is that the social good itself--its very
nature--points to merit as the morally proper basis for
distribution. This Aristotelian notion
 (SS1)
 is today more commonly put in terms of "fittingness" or
"relevant qualifications".



The idea may be elaborated in conceptual terms (see Sher 1987 and
Williams 1973). It is morally fitting to give the job at the widget
factory to the applicant who is best at making widgets, a fact which
may be discerned from the concept of widget-making (cf. Williams:
"The proper ground of distribution of medical care is ill
health: this is a necessary truth" [1973: 240]).



Put differently, there is a conceptual connection between social goods
and merit. There is no such connection between social goods and the
other commonly-cited grounds for distribution, such as maximizing
productivity or treating people equally. While in those cases
connections doubtless exist and may seem weighty, they are external.
They do not participate in our understanding of the social good
itself.



The fittingness of merit-based distribution might be regarded as
primitive and thus neither in need of nor amenable to further
justification. As Joel Feinberg puts it,



> 
> 
> I am not sure how, if at all, these judgments of moral appropriateness
> are to be verified; but I suspect that they resemble certain aesthetic
> judgments--for example that crimson and orange are clashing
> colors. (1963: 92)
> 
> 
> 


### 4.2 The meritocratic distribution of jobs



Meritocratic hiring is often described using the language of
*discrimination*. It is unjust, according the meritocrat, to
discriminate against applicants for a job on any ground other than
merit:



> 
> 
> According to a widely held view, when there are a number of applicants
> for an available job, justice demands that the job be offered to the
> best-qualified applicant. We express this by saying that ... the
> principle involved is one of hiring by merit. This is the principle
> that condemns discrimination on grounds of sex, race, or religion when
> hiring employees, as well, of course, as good old-fashioned nepotism.
> (David Miller 1999: 156)
> 
> 
> 



This is the moral principle seemingly at work (as Schmidtz [2006]
points out) in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous "I Have a
Dream" speech, in which King yearns that his children "not
be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their
character". For the meritocrat, racial discrimination is morally
wrong because *all* non-merit-based discrimination is
wrong.



The principle has been operationalized. In "blind
auditions", pioneered by symphony orchestras, applicants play
behind screens so that the jury cannot discover their race, sex,
appearance, etc. and can only assess the quality of the
performance.



In the United States, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was defended, in
part, on meritocratic grounds (see Kershnar 2003). The Act prohibits
discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin,
and sex. (The U.S. Supreme Court later decided--in *Bostock v.
Clayton County*--that discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation and gender identity runs afoul of the Act's
injunction against sex-based discrimination, and so is illegal.)



Lacking a theory of merit
 (SS2.1),
 it is not always clear which features of applicants count as merits
and which do not. In toy cases--say, hiring a new
bricklayer--things are simple. A bricklayer must be
*strong*, *reliable*, *precise* in his work, and
so on. Race, gender, and appearance are obviously irrelevant to
bricklaying.



In the real world, things are murkier. One example of this is
"reaction qualifications" (Wertheimer 1983). These are



> 
> 
> qualifications that count as such because of the reactions of
> recipients, where the recipients are those with whom the successful
> candidate will interact as a result of filling the relevant position.
> (Mason 2017:
>  49)[4]
> 
> 
> 



The taste discrimination case considered in
 SS2.1
 involves a reaction qualification which is not a *bona fide*
merit. Racist customers may react positively to a saleswoman of their
preferred race. But her race is not a merit. On the other hand,
customers will buy more widgets from a saleswoman who is
*personable*, and that is a merit.



Between these there are difficult cases. Suppose the saleswoman is
*beautiful*, and her beauty entices customers to buy from her
when they otherwise would not. Is beauty a merit in the context of
selling widgets? In the context of modeling? Working at McDonalds? Is
being a woman a merit in the context of gynecology (because many women
would prefer a female doctor)? A satisfying conceptual analysis of
merit would distinguish meritocratic reaction qualifications from
non-meritocratic reaction qualifications.



A salient and philosophically interesting issue is affirmative action.
Some forms of affirmative action do not appear to conflict with
meritocratic hiring. For example, making special efforts to solicit
applicants from historically underrepresented groups and then judging
those applicants (along with everyone else) on the basis of merit
seems compatible.



But the crux of affirmative action--quotas and preferential
treatment--is incompatible with meritocratic hiring. As Robert
Fullinwider (2002 [2018]) says, "the aims of real world
affirmative action make race and ethnicity (and sometimes gender)
salient, not personal desert or merit". (See also Nagel
1973.)



Affirmative action thus helpfully puts the question to meritocratic
justice. For some, affirmative action's incompatibility with
meritocracy reveals that affirmative action is unjust. For others,
this incompatibility is evidence that meritocracy is an erroneous view
of justice.



Three notes on this. First, meritocrats' resistance to
affirmative action should be viewed in light of their commitment to
equal opportunity
 (SS2.3).
 Their argument is not that there are no racial injustices, but that
the proper remedy is bolstering equal opportunity rather than quotas /
preferential treatment.



Second, affirmative action again illustrates the cleavage between
merit and consequences. It might be the case that hiring on the basis
of race or gender produces better consequences, owing to, for
instance, the benefits of a diverse workforce. For the meritocrat,
that is irrelevant--it remains unjust, because
discriminatory.



Third, all that said, meritocratic hiring and affirmative action are
not necessarily incompatible. Suppose, for example, that there exists
"implicit bias" against some group--that is,
selectors unconsciously regard members of that group as less
meritorious than they actually are. If so, then by showing
"preference" to members of this group, selectors would
merely nullify the bias and ensure that every candidate is judged on
his merits. Obviously, whether implicit bias exists is an empirical
issue. As of now, it is a hotly debated one (see, e.g., Jussim et al.
forthcoming).


### 4.3 The meritocratic distribution of income



Meritocrats most commonly hold that economies ought to compensate
people on the basis of their
 *contributions*.[5]
 That is, when it comes to the distribution of income (and thus
wealth, being merely a stock of unspent income), "merit"
should be interpreted as economic contribution. (For discussion of the
matters arising in this section, see Dekker 2010, Hsieh 2000, Mankiw
2010, David Miller 1989 and 1999, Mulligan 2018b, Riley 1989, Sheffrin
2013, Von Platz 2022, and Weinstein 2011.)



Imagine a garden which produces a harvest (the "output")
as a result of citizens' contributions to it--seeding,
watering, weeding, fertilizing, and so on ("inputs"). The
meritocrat holds that each citizen deserves a share of the harvest
proportional to her contribution to it. If Lane contributes twice as
much during the growing season as Rory, then Lane deserves twice as
much in return. (This is, again, Aristotle's notion of
proportional equality.)



Before we examine this metaphor--its complexities and whether it
is apposite in the first place--it is worth noting that this
distributive principle is idiosyncratic, politically. To many, the
idea that people who contribute more should be paid more, an obviously
inegalitarian idea, sounds conservative. And it has been defended by
conservatives (e.g., Mankiw [2013]).



Yet this is at the very same time the rule favored by Marx (in
"Critique of the Gotha Program") for his penultimate,
socialist phase of history. This is, in part, why it is fair to say
that "Marx is more a meritocrat than Rawls, Nielsen, Dworkin,
and most contemporary liberal political philosophers" (Pojman
1999: 93).



An obvious question for this distributive view is how to interpret
"contribution". For some scholars, the proper index is
*willingness-to-pay (WTP)*--the maximum price a person
will pay for some good or service. Thus, if a person *P*
produces *X*, by aggregating the WTP for *X* across
consumers we obtain a measure of *P*'s contribution.



A slightly different interpretation relies on the concept of
*consumer surplus*. Observe that if a consumer pays exactly her
WTP for *X*, in a sense she has received no benefit. For at
that price she is, by definition, indifferent between buying
*X* and saving her money. Whereas, if there is a large
difference between her WTP and *X*'s price, then her
welfare (as measured in dollars) increases when she buys
 *X*.[6]
 That increase is the consumer surplus.



The typical person's WTP for a diamond ring is high and WTP for
a jug of water is low. But plausibly the producer of the latter
contributes more than the producer of the former.



Standard (neoclassical) economic theory also provides an
interpretation of contribution, as *marginal product*. This is
the change in economic output a person's economic participation
creates, holding all else fixed. In simple models, this in fact is how
economies remunerate. In these models, compensation equals
contribution.



Still, it is important that compensation be *proportional* to
contribution, since, in general, total output will not equal the sum
of marginal products. (It's true only for the special case of
*constant returns to scale*.) But in all cases, proportional
compensation is possible.



All of these interpretations of "contribution" rely on the
standard idea that economic value is *subjective*--that
goods and services are valuable because, and only insofar as, they are
desired by consumers. That might be disputed. Perhaps producers of
firearms and social media make no contribution at all or indeed are
destructive. That possibility is not captured in any of the
aforementioned interpretations, and would require elaboration by a
meritocrat so inclined.



Another question is how to disentangle individuals'
contributions from the collective economic effort. In particular,
people's contributions emanate not only from their labor, but
from capital as well.



Suppose a worker produces 100 widgets per day in a factory. On his
own, the worker could produce nothing. Without workers, the factory
would sit idle. How many of those 100 widgets reflects the
worker's contribution? How many reflect the contribution of the
capitalist who owns the factory?



This *entanglement problem* speaks to the essential role that
equal opportunity plays in a meritocracy. If the capitalist inherited
the factory from his father, it is hard to see why he should be
rewarded on meritocratic grounds. His contributions do not reflect
*his* merit. If, in contrast, the capitalist bought the factory
himself, with money he earned *via* his economic contributions,
that seems meritocratic.



An issue which has arisen in the literature, which is empirical rather
than philosophical, is how well actual economies approximate this
meritocratic ideal. One important way they do not is the presence of
*economic rent* (see Lamont 1997 and Mulligan 2018a).



Classically, economic rents were payments for "free gifts of
nature", like unimproved land. Imagine a wild orchard controlled
by *O*, who charges people for the right to harvest it. That
portion of *O*'s income is economic rent. The orchard
makes its contribution--bears fruit--whether *O*
receives an income or not. This is obviously different from typical
compensation, which is necessary to bring factors of production into
use. If you want a person to make widgets, you have to pay him.
Economic rents are, thus, payments to a person unrelated to his
economic contribution. And unlike typical forms of income, economic
rents can be taxed without loss of economic efficiency.



In contemporary economies, economic rents are diverse. They include
income that (i) executives receive by gaining control over their own
pay-setting (see, e.g., Bebchuk & Fried 2004); (ii) is obtained
through luck (Bertrand & Mullainathan 2001); (iii) is connected to
unproductive activity (think: hedge funds that exploit technical
inefficiencies in markets, Bivens & Mishel 2013); and (iv)
attractive people make *because* they are attractive--the
*beauty premium* (Hamermesh & Biddle 1994).



Typically, when economists and philosophers object to *economic
rent* it is on the grounds that it is inefficient. For the
meritocrat, it is worse than that: It is unjust.



The most famous opponent of economic rent is Henry George, who states
his opposition in recognizably meritocratic terms:



> 
> 
> When all rent is taken by taxation for the needs of the community,
> then will the equality ordained by nature be achieved. No citizen will
> have an advantage over any other citizen save as is given by his
> industry, skill, and intelligence; and each will obtain what he fairly
> earns. Then, but not till then, will labour get its full reward, and
> capital its natural return. (1879: book VIII, chapter III, last
> paragraph)
> 
> 
> 



One might wonder: Just how unequal would a meritocracy be? While the
precise distribution of jobs, income, and wealth will depend on the
particulars of the meritocratic theory, meritocracy would be
egalitarian by contemporary standards. Observe that, in a meritocracy,
differences in merit may arise in only two ways: differences in
natural traits and differences in individual choice (about which
skills to develop, what career to pursue, how much to work, etc.) (A
meritocrat could even hold that equal opportunity requires nullifying
differences in natural
 traits--SS2.3--leaving
 individual choice as the sole source of inequality.)



In addition, in a meritocracy there is little to no inheritance of
wealth. This is for the same reason that there is no inheritance of
hereditary titles and their concomitant privileges: It violates equal
opportunity. Inherited wealth also severs the critical connection
between contribution and income. If one doesn't deserve some
wealth--which one doesn't, if it's
inherited--then one doesn't deserve the investment income
it produces.



Further, the largest divergences between contribution and income are
seen at the top of the distribution. Economic rents, for instance, are
extracted by the very rich. Meritocratic policies to remedy the
problem of rent have the effect of redistributing wealth from the top
of the distribution downward.


## 5. Objections



All philosophical theories garner objections. Meritocracy is unusual
in that its critics come from all over: egalitarians and libertarians;
liberals and conservatives; leftists and reactionaries.


### 5.1 Rawls



In *A Theory of Justice*, Rawls assures his readers that his
theory would not produce a meritocratic society. That is not to say
that there is no common ground between Rawls and meritocrats. Both
agree that equal opportunity is an essential element of a just
 society.[7]
 But Rawls pairs equal opportunity not with a meritocratic
distributive rule, but with his *Difference Principle*. A just
society, according to Rawls, will respond to merit only insofar as
that benefits the worst-off members of society. Conceivably, by
allowing meritorious citizens to earn more than non-meritorious
citizens, we can grow the social pie and thereby enable greater
redistribution to the worst-off. If that is the case, and only if that
is the case, will Rawls' theory pay any heed to merit. But
merit's role in Rawlsian distribution will always be mild,
instrumental, and contingent.



Rawls has four other objections to meritocracy. The first targets
desert-based theories of justice broadly. Rawls claims that no one
deserves anything because all bases for desert originate in
"fortunate family or social circumstances". A person is
intelligent, for instance, either because she has a naturally high IQ
or because she was raised in an environment that cultivated that
trait. Either way, that kind of "fortune" undermines
desert-based distribution. (Marx makes a similar argument in
"Critique of the Gotha Program".)



Second, Rawls regards meritocracy as unworkable. It may just be
practically impossible to track people's merits in sufficient
detail to enable merit-based distribution.



Third, perhaps meritocracy is only justified by "comprehensive
doctrines", and does not emerge from free and equal people in a
system of cooperation (Rawls 1993). If that is so (and if Rawlsian
public reason is sound), then that is a problem. But Margaret Holmgren
(1986) and James Sterba (1974) argue that Rawlsian contractors would
in fact choose a desert-based system of justice, like meritocracy.



Fourth, Rawls says that meritocracy is insufficiently democratic. This
is interesting because later in *A Theory of Justice* he
suggests an openness to meritocratic governance:



> 
> 
> Now the ship of state is in some ways analogous to a ship at sea; and
> to the extent that this is so, the political liberties are indeed
> subordinate to the other freedoms that, so to say, define the
> intrinsic good of the passengers. Admitting these assumptions, plural
> voting may be perfectly just. (1971: 233)
> 
> 
> 


### 5.2 Relational egalitarianism



By definition, egalitarians regard the ideal of *equality* as
morally salient. Meritocrats, on the other hand, regard equality as
irrelevant or even inimical to justice. (Unless we are talking about
Aristotelian proportional equality.)



One important class of equality-based objections to meritocracy comes
from *relational egalitarians* like Elizabeth Anderson (1999)
and Harry Brighouse (1996), who argue that it is morally important
that people be able to relate to each other as equals. That seems
threatened in a meritocracy, in which differences in merit create
differences in political power, social goods, or both. How could an
unmeritorious person regard a meritorious person as an equal,
especially when the latter is wealthier, or has more votes, than the
former? Mightn't there be problems of *oppression*,
*domination*, and *hierarchy* in a meritocracy?
Don't meritocrats even celebrate hierarchies?



Relational egalitarianism is used to defend democratic political
arrangements. Brighouse, for example, advances the "equal
availability of political influence [EAPI]", which includes the
"one person, one vote" principle:



> 
> 
> The argument for EAPI is that guaranteeing that equal influence will
> be available to them over our collective circumstances is a requisite
> of expressing respect for our fellow citizens. (1996: 123)
> 
> 
> 



Thus for Brighouse, a meritocratic political arrangement (that, e.g.,
violated "one person, one vote") would obstruct
citizens' mutual respect, and therefore be morally unacceptable.
Analogous objections to meritocracy would be lodged by other
relational egalitarians, with specifics depending on the particular
relational egalitarian theory.


### 5.3 Democratic theory



Unsurprisingly, democrats object to meritocratic politics. There are
three main classes of objection.



For *epistemic democrats* (e.g., Goodin & Spiekermann
[2018] and Landemore [2012]), democracy is valuable and legitimate
because of its ability to make correct (e.g., just) decisions. They
either resist meritocrats' claims
 (SS3)
 about the ignorance and irrationality of the democratic voter or,
more commonly, reject the inference from individual dysfunction to
collective dysfunction. This is the most direct objection to
meritocracy given that nearly all arguments for meritocratic
governance are epistemic in character.



The most commonly-adduced argument for the "wisdom of the
[democratic] crowd" is *Condorcet's Jury Theorem*
(Condorcet 1785). In its simplest form, the theorem considers a group
of voters choosing between two alternatives (e.g., a Democrat and a
Republican). Each voter has a probability of choosing the
"correct" (e.g., more just) candidate. That probability is
shared and >50%. Assuming votes are statistically independent and
the group uses "one person, one vote", Condorcet's
theorem tells us that (i) the larger the group gets, the more likely
it is to choose correctly and (ii) the probability that the group
chooses correctly goes to 100% as the number of voters goes to
infinity.



The meritocrat may avail himself of three broad rejoinders here.
First, he may deny the relevance of the model on the grounds that its
assumptions are violated in the real world. (Statistical independence
is particularly troublesome given the many ways voters interact.)
Second, he may concede that the collective performance of democracy is
good for Condorcetian reasons, but insist that meritocracy does
better. For it too may enjoy benefits from aggregation. Third, he may
reply that the theorem itself commends unequal political influence:
When some citizens are more competent than others, "one person,
one vote" is (generally) suboptimal. The group does better if
more competent voters are given more influence (see, e.g., Nitzan
& Paroush 1985).



Epistemic democrats have drawn on other theoretical grounds. Perhaps
"diversity trumps ability" (Hong & Page 2004):
Democracy effectively harnesses diversity within contemporary
electorates, and thereby does better, epistemically, than meritocracy
does. Or perhaps while democratic voters do frequently err, as
meritocrats claim, those errors cancel out to allow an accurate
minority to prevail--the "miracle of aggregation"
(Surowiecki 2004).



*Procedural democrats* take a different tact. For them, what
justifies democracy and rules out meritocracy is adherence to certain
morally necessary procedures. For (pure) proceduralists, whether
meritocracy "tracks the truth" or makes decisions better
than democracy does is irrelevant (if indeed these notions make sense
at all).



If, for example, some voting procedure--like "one person,
one vote"--is required by justice, and democracy embodies
this procedure while meritocracy rejects it, no further analysis is
necessary: Democracy is justified and meritocracy is not. Many
relational egalitarian arguments
 (SS5.2)
 are proceduralist, and other kinds of proceduralist theories have
been developed (see, e.g., Habermas 1992 [1996] and Waldron 1999).



Finally, Estlund (2008) has advanced an influential objection which is
a hybrid of the epistemic and proceduralist
approaches--*epistemic proceduralism*. Estlund argues
against pure proceduralist approaches on the grounds that if
procedural fairness were all we cared about, democracy would be no
better than simply flipping a coin. In both cases, all citizens have
an equal chance of affecting an election (because, in the latter case,
none has any chance at all). So there must be an epistemic component
to political justification.



On the other hand, the fact that some meritocratic system might do
better than democracy is insufficient to justify it. Our political
system, Estlund argues, must be "generally acceptable" to
all reasonable citizens (i.e., this is a public reason argument).
According to Estlund, of all the generally acceptable systems,
democracy does best.


### 5.4 Libertarianism



The conflict between meritocracy and libertarianism is most obvious
when one considers right-libertarian theories, like Robert
Nozick's (1974). But conflict exists, too, for left-libertarian
theories that have some common ground with meritocracy, like an
affinity for equal opportunity (e.g., Otsuka's [2003]). (For a
full discussion, see Mulligan 2018d.)



To begin with, the meritocrat's distributive rule--hire,
compensate, etc. on the basis of merit--violates a libertarian
right to contract. For libertarians, business owners are free to hire
whomever they want. They are not obligated to hire the most
meritorious applicant. An owner may wish to hire on the basis of race,
or gender, or with an eye toward maximizing profits. She may wish to
hire a friend or family member. So long as owner and employee enter
into their contract freely (and without fraud and the other typical
caveats), libertarian justice is done.



A meritocratic government may enforce an alignment between
contribution and compensation. But that requires government
interventions into market exchanges which are unacceptable to the
libertarian. These interventions could include, for example, high top
marginal income tax rates and limits on executive compensation in
order to disincentivize economic rent
 (SS4.3).



Most libertarians also reject equal opportunity, and certainly the
demanding form required under meritocracy. In a meritocracy, extensive
redistribution enables (among other things) education and healthcare
for the children of the poor. Coercive taxation is part and parcel of
redistribution. Equal opportunity may also require that the government
confiscate and redistribute estates. All of this is problematic from
the libertarian perspective. (Although see Bird-Pollan 2013 and Braun
2010 for arguments that libertarianism is compatible with estate
taxes.)



Friedrich Hayek (1960) explicitly criticizes merit-based distribution.
He gives two arguments. First, he correctly observes that a
meritocratic economy may not be optimally efficient.



> 
> 
> We do not wish people to earn a maximum of merit but to achieve a
> maximum of usefulness at a minimum of pain and sacrifice and therefore
> a minimum of merit. (1960: 96)
> 
> 
> 



Hayek's point is that one way to distribute (the right way, to
his mind) is with an eye toward maximizing the economic surplus;
another way is to distribute on the basis of merit. This objection
does not rest in a Nozickian freedom of contract but in
libertarianism's classical liberal tradition, which typically
appeals to the consequentialist benefits of free markets.



Second, Hayek objects to the idea of a "merit czar" who
would monitor market activity and intervene to enforce merit-based
distribution. That would be tyrannical. However (as Schmidtz &
Boettke [2012 [2021]]) point out), this is not a normative objection
to meritocracy but an objection to central planning. Indeed,
Hayek's argument can be turned around: Perhaps we should prefer
market economies to central planning on the grounds that the former
does a better job than the latter at recognizing merit.



One final objection, sometimes attributed to Hayek, is that
meritocracy is heartless. In the actual world, the objection goes,
"losers" can somewhat justifiably attribute their
condition to having grown up poor or to external factors, like racial
discrimination. Those are psychologically useful excuses. But in a
meritocracy, in which there is equal opportunity and people are judged
on their merits, those excuses are unavailable.


### 5.5 Other objections



Meritocracy promises efficiency benefits and other good consequences,
but only contingently. Meritocracy is not a utilitarian theory, and
focused utilitarian objections have been lodged against it (see, e.g.,
Durlauf 2008).



Meritocracy strikes some as insufficiently attentive to the needs of
the poorest citizens; it is not a prioritarian theory (Wilson 2003).
(Although if the poor are underpaid given their merit, and the rich
are overpaid, as many meritocrats claim, then meritocracy will do
better than the status quo from the prioritarian point-of-view.
Meritocratic equal opportunity will also have an enormous effect.)
Richard Arneson (1999) rejects Rawls's Fair Equality of
Opportunity
 (SS5.1)
 as an unacceptable "compromise with meritocracy" because
it constrains the prioritarian Difference Principle.



Some scholars make what is essentially an empirical argument, denying
the existence of an elite class of citizens on which meritocratic
governance can rely (Gunn 2019; Hannon 2022; Mendez 2022; Reiss
2019). If the "meritocrats" are not more knowledgeable
than common people, or if they suffer from unique and damaging biases,
then, whatever its theoretical virtues, meritocracy cannot be
operationalized.


## 6. The Public Debate



There's been a flurry of recent, public-facing work on
meritocracy. This work addresses meritocracy as a theory of justice
 (SS4),
 and is largely critical (e.g., Carneval et al. 2020; Littler 2018;
Mandler 2020; Markovits 2019; and Sandel 2020).



The public debate tends to be convoluted for two reasons. First,
commentators often fail to make clear what they mean by
"meritocracy". The meritocratic ideal is more or less
compelling depending on how it is defined (e.g., with robust equal
opportunity or without). To avoid talking past each other, it is
critical that commentators have a common definition in mind.



Second, one sees the classic conflation of the normative and the
positive. This entry is concerned with the normative question:
*Ought* we live in a meritocracy? (Or, almost equivalently, is
meritocracy just?)



But then there is the positive question: *Is* the world
meritocratic? Do people enjoy equal opportunity? All else equal, do
poor children and rich children face equal prospects? Are jobs and
income being distributed on the basis of merit? Or are
non-meritocratic features--race, gender, family connections,
appearance, luck, and so on--playing roles as well?



It is useful to partition commentators on meritocracy along the
normative/positive dimensions. Some commentators (e.g., Mankiw [2013])
believe that meritocracy is both desirable and largely realized in the
actual world. Others (Mulligan [2018b]) think that meritocracy is
desirable but that we do not live in one. Still others (Markovits
[2019]) say that we live in a meritocracy and that this is a bad
thing. Finally, there are some (Gheaus [2015]) who think that
meritocracy is neither achieved nor a worthy ideal in the first
place.



Further complicating matters is the way perceptions of merit affect
the public's normative evaluation of policy. Consider
affirmative action. While divisive, many supporters of affirmative
action and many opponents appear to agree morally: Both want the most
meritorious applicant to be hired. What they disagree about is whether
affirmative action contributes to or detracts from this shared goal.
Supporters think that affirmative action nullifies racial bias and
other forms of disadvantage, ensuring that the most meritorious
applicant gets hired. Opponents of affirmative action think that the
policy violates meritocratic hiring by giving some applicants
advantage (and others, perforce, disadvantage) on the basis of race
(see, e.g., Reyna et al. 2005).



As Suhay, Tenenbaum, and Bartola describe things,



> 
> 
> Even controlling for partisanship and various demographic
> characteristics, perceptions of whether the U.S. economy is
> meritocratic are strongly associated with people's views on
> taxation, social welfare policy, affirmative action, and presidential
> candidates.... If citizens could develop a shared understanding
> of the ways in which the American economy fails to deliver
> meritocratic outcomes, perhaps they would demand the two parties find
> common ground on policies designed to combat inequality. (2022: 9
> ff.)
> 
> 
> 



The way the public perceives social and economic realities--as
meritocratic or not--appears to play a crucial role in their
moral assessment of those realities.



A curious feature of the debate is how both opponents and supporters
of meritocracy appeal to the same facts in making their cases. Michael
Sandel (2020), for example, attacks today's culture of
"credentialism" (also known as "pedigree"), in
which a diploma from an elite college is a *de facto*
requirement for entry into elite professions. Frequently, a less
meritorious but credentialed person (from, say, Harvard) is preferred
to a more meritorious but uncredentialed person (UMass). Credentialism
is, by Sandel's lights, a feature of meritocracy.



Mulligan (2018b) also attacks credentialism, arguing that meritocracy
is the solution to it rather than its cause. A Harvard education is
not markedly better than a UMass education, but the returns to a
Harvard education are enormously better than the returns to a UMass
education. The returns to a Harvard education are, thus, largely rent
 (SS4.3),
 and so credentialism is unmeritocratic.



The meritocracy debate is, to put it mildly, unsettled. This is a
reflection of its philosophical richness. While meritocratic ideas
have been expressed and implemented for millennia, we still struggle
to say exactly what meritocracy is and if it is desirable. We do not
have full answers to those questions. But perhaps we are now, at
least, beginning to understand them.