Sometimes I think the term “deserve” is getting in our way, like there is some kind of assumption of a divine, external, objective thing called “just desserts.”
The point of merit is in the incentives (and as you mention) the information. I have no idea if a billionaire deserves what he earned, nor do I have any idea what that means in cosmic terms. I do know that an argument can be made that we benefit collectively by having a system which rewards entrepreneurs discovering solutions in which we will voluntarily reward them monetarily for adding value to our lives (a win/win). I have no idea if an Olympic gold medalist deserves merit on a cosmic level, I just know that I enjoy the competition and artistry that those who excel display. I don’t care if sons of rich people learn more than those of the poor, as what matters is whether the incentives are aligned around getting people to pursue useful education.
The point is, a successful and progressive society creates institutions which funnel constructive competitions in useful directions and away from destructive directions.
A good meritocracy with proper incentives and constructive competitions is essential for good society.
Yes. When we have a way to produce high performing individuals (in sports, research or anything), we should absolutely keep that structure in place and definitely not level the playing field down. The only thing we could do is "level up" (as in the boxing analogy) by analyzing why people outperform others (information) and see if we can reproduce it. That way people move up instead of society leveling down. Of course that's not always possible, but in that case it's information gathering that we should push and not equalizing outcomes.
I mean it's not literally being rich that makes someone succeed. Some combination of private tutoring or stable homes or something is doing the trick and that's what we should try to reproduce -if possible. If not, we keep trying to get more data, while accepting that unfairness is simply part of the equation of improving society by incentivizing greatness.
I think the word "deserve" means "just enough incentive". Enough to get the job done but not so much as to be excessively cruel punishments or rewards measured in billions.
BTW people tend to misunderstand those billions. Because we consume most of our income, so we think of it as something like 10000 times our consumption, clearly an excessive reward. Mostly those billions are just owning businesses, not consumption, not liquid cash.
Anyhow "just enough incentive" really solves the merit problem. If there are no weight classes in boxing, everybody but the biggest guys stop competing. A fair merit system is that results in the most competition.
If we want to answer questions like "is the world of software dev meritocratic to women?" the question what we want to solve is "are many women giving up the dream of becoming a software dev because they feel they are not welcome there? is there an optimal level of competition?"
A market based system is at its core a positive sum, not a zero sum, endeavor. For an entrepreneur, they risk billions in developing new technologies, products and capital investments in the hope of striking gold. The reward for big risk with small chances of success needs to be huge. The more you limit the upside, the more you strangle the investment and risk side.
And coming back to it being positive sum, since consumers typically benefit from the competition, they (aka we) are better off with higher upside. We would be better if there were more billionaires, a lot more. Heck, in the future, if we are lucky, we will see trillionaires.
Sometimes I think the term “deserve” is getting in our way, like there is some kind of assumption of a divine, external, objective thing called “just desserts.”
The point of merit is in the incentives (and as you mention) the information. I have no idea if a billionaire deserves what he earned, nor do I have any idea what that means in cosmic terms. I do know that an argument can be made that we benefit collectively by having a system which rewards entrepreneurs discovering solutions in which we will voluntarily reward them monetarily for adding value to our lives (a win/win). I have no idea if an Olympic gold medalist deserves merit on a cosmic level, I just know that I enjoy the competition and artistry that those who excel display. I don’t care if sons of rich people learn more than those of the poor, as what matters is whether the incentives are aligned around getting people to pursue useful education.
The point is, a successful and progressive society creates institutions which funnel constructive competitions in useful directions and away from destructive directions.
A good meritocracy with proper incentives and constructive competitions is essential for good society.
Yes. When we have a way to produce high performing individuals (in sports, research or anything), we should absolutely keep that structure in place and definitely not level the playing field down. The only thing we could do is "level up" (as in the boxing analogy) by analyzing why people outperform others (information) and see if we can reproduce it. That way people move up instead of society leveling down. Of course that's not always possible, but in that case it's information gathering that we should push and not equalizing outcomes.
I mean it's not literally being rich that makes someone succeed. Some combination of private tutoring or stable homes or something is doing the trick and that's what we should try to reproduce -if possible. If not, we keep trying to get more data, while accepting that unfairness is simply part of the equation of improving society by incentivizing greatness.
I think the word "deserve" means "just enough incentive". Enough to get the job done but not so much as to be excessively cruel punishments or rewards measured in billions.
BTW people tend to misunderstand those billions. Because we consume most of our income, so we think of it as something like 10000 times our consumption, clearly an excessive reward. Mostly those billions are just owning businesses, not consumption, not liquid cash.
Anyhow "just enough incentive" really solves the merit problem. If there are no weight classes in boxing, everybody but the biggest guys stop competing. A fair merit system is that results in the most competition.
If we want to answer questions like "is the world of software dev meritocratic to women?" the question what we want to solve is "are many women giving up the dream of becoming a software dev because they feel they are not welcome there? is there an optimal level of competition?"
I disagree with the first half of your argument.
A market based system is at its core a positive sum, not a zero sum, endeavor. For an entrepreneur, they risk billions in developing new technologies, products and capital investments in the hope of striking gold. The reward for big risk with small chances of success needs to be huge. The more you limit the upside, the more you strangle the investment and risk side.
And coming back to it being positive sum, since consumers typically benefit from the competition, they (aka we) are better off with higher upside. We would be better if there were more billionaires, a lot more. Heck, in the future, if we are lucky, we will see trillionaires.