A defining characteristic of the industrialized world has been the promise of meritocracy: if you’re smart and work hard, you can improve your position in life. The promise has always had limits, and class mobility has often been more aspiration than reality, but the belief itself has been a driving motivation for much of society.…
A belief in meritocracy is not only false: it’s bad for you | Aeon Ideas
The belief that hard work and talent make for success is not only false, it encourages selfishness and discrimination too
The myth of meritocracy: who really gets what they deserve?
The long read: Sorting people by ‘merit’ will do nothing to fix inequality
A More Perfect Meritocracy
Two new books take aim at the moral failures of meritocracy. But we can advocate for a more just society without giving up on merit.
The Post-Meritocracy Manifesto - Created by Coraline Ada Ehmke
Meritocracy is a founding principle of the open source movement, and the ideal of meritocracy is perpetuated throughout our field in the way people are recruited, hired, retained, promoted, and valued.
Why Meritocracy Doesn't Work: The Math Behind the Myth
Even a 1% hiring bias compounds dramatically across hierarchies and growth. Here's the math proving why meritocracy fails and diversity initiatives matter.
Meritocracy: the great delusion that ingrains inequality | Jo Littler
From Theresa May to Donald Trump, our leaders sell it as a utopian system of fairness – but ‘merit’ has been manipulated to privilege the wealthy
Preface | The World After Capital
Since publishing the previous version of The World After Capital, I have met with people across the political spectrum to discuss the ideas from the book. When I present these in person, I emphasize that the ideas are neither left nor right but forward (credit to Scott Santens who first used this phrase about Universal Basic Income). My writing, however, at times has alienated readers who identify as being more on the right. In this new edition, I am therefore making an extra effort to emphasize how both my diagnosis of where we are at and my suggestions for how to move forward do not map onto the existing political divides. Instead this is a new way of understanding our challenges and opportunities that can be the basis for movements and parties that are not trapped in Industrial Age ideology.
A Big Little Idea Called Legibility
James C. Scott's fascinating and seminal book, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Imp rove the Human Condition Have Failed , examines how, across…
Denizen
How might we promote and sustain human prosperity and well being in an economy of permanence? John Fullerton takes his cues from stable, healthy living systems to formulate eight principles for a regenerative economy.
My own private basic income
One person’s experience becoming a business owner shows how our economy is based on luck rather than merit and how it rewards people who own stuff rather than people who do stuff.
The Case for Lowering Your Expectations
It may be the key to happiness and sustainable performance
What Humanity Needs To Flourish In The Next Decade
We are headed toward a world of productivity without prosperity, execution without verification and capacity without constraint. But this outcome is not inevitable.
What Humanity Needs To Flourish In The Next Decade
We are headed toward a world of productivity without prosperity, execution without verification and capacity without constraint. But this outcome is not inevitable.
Belonging Is a Right, Not a Reward
CW: Ableism Disabled people have been made to prove their worth for too long. Society sees value in work, earnings, or productivity, and anyone who doesn’t meet these standards is expected to…
What will be scarce?
The economics of structural change and the post-commodity future of work
