Pareto principles

I tend to suspect any meritocracy is a long con.

The underlying tension to this supposition lies in my experience of hierarchies.

Hierarchies are inherently but honestly unequal, and power, according to whatever your preferred soft magic system is (be it philosophical, religious, spiritual, political, gubernatorial, academic, Instagrammable, or — and ultimately many systems in place today are — economical) hierarchies are bald expressions of power, and the people at the top are willing to fight to stay king of the mountain.

Most of the rest of us are simply desperate not to lose ground.

Thus enters ‘meritocracy.’

The whole concept of meritocracy was introduced as a satire by a British novelist at the height of the British Empire. He suggested that the more British-ness one could achieve, the closer one got to the top of the hierarchy, and, as the top of the hierarchy determined what the somewhat elusive ‘British-ness’ was, one could never truly reach the pinnacle of the established quo because one could not be more powerful than the individuals at the zenith who, in effect, determined what constituted “power.”

In the USA, this is referred to as ‘game theory’ in that, theoretically, you should never play a game in which you are not making up the rules. Gotcha, globe.

America Rule$

(Pun intentional.)

I think this view, when I succeed in using it, has cost me external power but…