The Merit of Merit (part 2 of 2)

How we can get beyond Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to establish Merit-based decisions in all our institutions.

The following is an excerpt from my second book Promoting Progress: A Radical New Agenda to Create Abundance for All. You can order e-books at a discounted price at my website, or you can purchase for full price on Amazon.

Other books in my “From Poverty to Progress” book series:

In the first part of “The Merit of Merit (part 1)”, I explained why Merit is necessary for a modern society to experience progress.

Nepotism

One of the principal objections to meritocracy is that influential and wealthy parents often game the system to the benefit of their children. Whether it is getting their children into the best schools, taking them to SAT test prep schools, paying for tutors, or bribing college deans, there is certainly no shortage of parents gaming the system.

But we need to be clear that much of this gaming of the system is against the concept of meritocracy, not in favor of it. And, more importantly, much of this behavior is desirable for society.

We want parents to give their children the best. The fact that parents have differing abilities to do so should not undermine this goal.

I could think of no better definition of a dystopia than a society where parents do not care about their children more than others. Passing on the values, skills, and habits that are necessary to thrive in a modern society typically happens via direct interpersonal exchange. Parents are in by far in the best position to do this. Most do an adequate job of it.

We want parents who invest in their children’s education, comfort them in their failures and push them to succeed. We want parents to care about the quality of their children’s teachers and schools and, if necessary, to relocate to find better options. We want parents to invest in their children’s health and cultivate interests in different fields.

What we do not want is for parents who contributed to society in their lifetimes to give their below-average children a better shot than lower-income children with greater potential. Their personal interest in wanting the best for their children cannot distort the meritocratic decision-making of our institutions.

In short, we want parents to invest in their children without being able to cheat the process in their favor. We should not expect the children of wealthy parents to have the same outcomes as the children of poor children. But we do not want a system where the children of wealthy parents can coast to success with very little effort, while the talented children of poor parents are unable to succeed despite their inherent talent.

The fact that some parents attempt to game the system on behalf of their children should not be used as an excuse for moving our society away from meritocracy. The proper response should be better enforcement and transparency so that we can have more meritocracy.

Credentialism

Another argument used against meritocracy is that it has degenerated into a veneration of academic credentials that does not accurately reflect the ideal of meritocracy. I will deal with four-year college degrees in much more detail later, but here I will say that the opponents of credentialism have a strong point.

The goal of a meritocracy should be encouraging people who have the ability to contribute the most to society to find a position within institutions to do so. Educational credentials were an important means for breaking down non-meritocratic decision-making in past generations. However, we must never forget that educational credentials are just one means of measuring merit, and they are not very focused on the specific skills needed for a specific job.

Academic credentials were an important step forward toward a more merit-based society, but today we can do better. In an era of computers and the internet, there are far more ways to learn new skills and knowledge. There are also far better ways of validating the fact that a candidate has mastered those skills and knowledge. Having a specific degree, no matter how prestigious, should not be enough.

Expanding Meritocracy

We should strive to replace academic credentials with exams that measure specific skills and knowledge relevant to the job. In the internet era, there should be no reason why we cannot do so.

Supporters of progress need to simultaneously:

1. Make overt discrimination, particularly as practiced by DEI advocates, illegal.

2. Allow individual non-government organizations to make hiring, firing, and promotion decisions free from government interference as long as they are transparent, objective, and merit-based.

3. Encourage private industry to develop very specific exams that more objectively measure job-based skills than current educational credentials do.

To support goals #2 and #3, Congress should pass legislation that any employer who requires a specific educational credential for a job must also accept:

• Job experience that typically demonstrates that the necessary skills for the job have already been acquired, or:

• Exam results that demonstrate that the candidate acquired the necessary skills and knowledge via a method other than formal education.

Rather than focusing excessively on educational credentials or previous jobs, employers should be encouraged to make hiring, firing, and promotion decisions solely based upon:

1. Demonstrated skills and knowledge that are relevant to the job.

2. Previous job performance, including the ability to work cooperatively with co-workers and customers.

3. Living in a geographical area that enables working for the company (to the extent that the position cannot be remote).

4. Salary and compensation demands.

5. Being an American citizen, legal resident, or having a work visa.