Leading question
What is meritocracy, and is it really fair?
Sources to evaluate
Understood literally, a meritocracy is a society in which influence (of some sort) is possessed on the basis of merit (whatever that means).
Meritocracy isn’t an unfamiliar term in this part of the world, where everything — from the education system to job opportunities — have frequent mention of it. It is a system that prioritises merit as a key quantitative measure of one’s ability, and one that rewards individuals based on their inherent skills and ability.
Meritocracy and inequality
While interacting with an LLM one day, I had this line of reasoning that quickly developed the more I thought about it:
Does this line of reasoning follow?
Meritocracy is not inherently a bad thing. In fact, it aims to reward those who put in the effort to stand out from the rest. However, if we do not remain cautious of how we approach and define meritocracy — especially regarding the quantitative metrics that define it — the system can be gamed through inequality. Those with more means, like people with more well-off backgrounds, can generally cheat the system by having access to resources that the rest don’t, ultimately winning in a meritocratic system but also contributing to an elitist one if left unchecked. For instance, Singapore’s meritocratic education system heavily champions academic excellence; but if those who are well-off have access to expensive tuition can naturally get ahead, how truly fair is meritocracy?
My current opinion stands that meritocracy isn’t inherently a bad thing, and it usually starts off fair by rewarding those who have added ability or skill to reap additional benefits. It’s only when people try to game the system that it becomes skewed and inequality can arise.
In Singapore’s context, meritocracy’s implementation is complicated. I don’t deny that meritocracy may have been a crucial factor in allowing Singapore to transform itself to what we know of it today, but I also feel like it might be worth seeing if we need to refine our approach with it today.
Singapore seems to know this, with the Minister for Education noting these pitfalls of meritocracy:
Meritocracies may measure success with narrow, static, and outdated yardsticks. Those who have succeeded in the past will want to perpetuate the same definitions of success. However, this will cause us to stagnate and become irrelevant.
Meritocracies run the risk of rewarding success only at pre-determined fixed points, where a single test at one point in time determines the trajectory of one’s life.
Meritocracies tend to stratify over time. Successful people will pass on their wealth and privileges to their children and can perpetuate a widening inequality of opportunities.
Meritocracies can lead to the misplaced belief that only their talents and hard work account for their success, neglecting the support they have received.
Forward Singapore (Unite Pillar): Revisiting Meritocracy, Forward Singapore