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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
The problem with meritocracy is that merit is heritable. I'm not talking about some sort of daft eugenics stuff, mind you, I'm simply saying that rewarding someone for their particular merit gives them privilege and resources that they can then pass on to their kids, giving those kids a much easier time acquiring the skills and connections they need to attain merit. Give it a couple of generations, and you've got a new elite, where only a fraction of society has the chance to acquire the prerequisites necessary for the jobs that society values.
To put it another way - in a meritocracy, who defines merit, and what happens to people who don't have it?
What's precedent ever done for us?Technically we're already living in a meritocracy. Richer people have a much easier time getting their children into schools better prepared to teach well, giving them a much better start education wise. Also better healthcare, which means they tend to be more physically fit as well.
So yeah, I think we have a pretty good model for what happens already. (This is why school funding shouldn't be tied to bullshit like local property values. And should basically be funded equally/according to their actual need.)
On the other side of the Atlantic in Britain, the opposite is the case — local property values are often tied to the catchment area of the school, especially if it is a good-performing school.
Keep Rolling OnI don't view socialism or communism as "progressive", I'd argue they're both rather regressive (especially communism, but I think we'll agree on that). Meritocracy is the metric by which I would call a system "progressive". Socialism isn't very meritocratic, and therefore not truly progressive.
I am in total agreement with that reasoning, but I very much don't think we have a meritocracy right now, in large part because of renting seeking behavior from nominally market actors using the state to subvert the market, mostly big business (huge amount of state intervention, basically cartels control the government now) but also a huge amount of restrictions on the lower level that causes major barriers to entry.
That's why I'm very suspicious of most conservatives today, they've grown to love free market rhetoric and gleefully use it to defend big business, but behind the curtain they're actually big state cronyists and all the supposedly free market reforms are simply socialism for the rich.
While it is true that many so-called "capitalists" support socialism for the rich, they legitimately aren't really capitalists, either. And, no, that's not a No True Scotsman.
edited 26th Mar '16 1:59:59 PM by Protagonist506
Leviticus 19:34
Exacto-Mundo. Rich people want to keep their monopolies, and therefore don't necessarily want a capitalist society.
FiveThirtyEight's electorate projections if a Clinton/Trump election were held today
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edited 26th Mar '16 3:29:07 PM by Blueeyedrat
The second one's unsurprising considering that around 50% of the population is female.
On empty crossroads, seek the eclipse -- for when Sol and Lua align, the lost shall find their way home.Looks like my sometimes-inability to discern humour struck again.
On empty crossroads, seek the eclipse -- for when Sol and Lua align, the lost shall find their way home.Sanders has won in Alaska and Washington state.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.The problem is that this undermines the fundamental premise of capitalism, which is that rational human behavior will naturally optimize everything and "the invisible hand of the market" will solve most problems. If people behaving in their own rational self-interest leads to monopolies and oligarchies, which it has been proven by history that it does (and quite frankly, why wouldn't a rich person want a monopoly? that's just good business sense), then honest capitalism simply cannot work in any form. If you need significant government intervention to police it (anti-trust laws, etc), then you're back to your same complaints about socialism: who decides what the correct shape of the economy is?
edited 26th Mar '16 4:12:37 PM by Clarste
Just got back from caucusing today. It was absolutely pandemonium in there. The Democrats had gone in expecting a caucus of hundreds, and thousands of people showed up chanting for "Bernie! Bernie!" We went overtime by hours and worked right through lunch trying to get everything done.
It was so bad, in fact, that the Fire Marshal showed up in person to tell us all that the building was over capacity and had become a safety hazard. We ended up pouring several districts out of the building and into the parking lot for the caucus.
Suffice to say, we got turnout.
Sort of true, the symbiotic relationship between big business and government which leads to unfree markets is kind of difficult avoid when you directly hand them the keys and give them your good will to use the power of government for themselves.
You do, but one of the most important reforms to make is to abolish all laws which give preferential treatment to big business and artificially suppress their competition. That's what progressives should be pushing for, but they accept the conservative framing that big business purely laissez-faire in nature. Policing if you have exactly the wrong idea in mind won't help. You'll at best manage to get rich people to cough up more money to prevent unrest, which is all well and good to be sure, but is rather putting the underlying problem to the side.
Pure capitalism is just as impossible as pure communism, as people, be they rich or poor, cannot be trusted to not do something to screw over others if it helps them gain power. In practice, the best scenario is when big government and big business are at odds with each other, with big government putting rules on big business to keep them from harming their citizens and big business suing when big government tries to harm their customers.
edited 26th Mar '16 5:26:48 PM by GameGuruGG
Wizard Needs Food BadlySo remember that whole "thing" with Bill visiting various Massachusetts polling stations? Well, he was caught doing it again in Illinois
.
However, an article I overlooked when posting about this last time had Massachusetts officials explain why Clinton didn't break any laws by being there
. That said, I can't recall having heard about a candidate or their spouse visiting a polling place when they're on the ballot, and I'm thinking it has to do with not wanting to even look like there's impropriety occurring.
The thing is that's not true. People were prevented from voting. Bill is protected by the secret service, and police barricaded every polling area he was in because of that, and asked people to leave. Also every polling station he went to was in a poor county, where he stayed for two hours. The people in those areas can't stay and wait for him to leave that long. They have to go to work or they risk losing their jobs.
As I was saying, this is a popular mythology among both liberals and conservatives, they're mostly in agreement that free markets lead directly to big business, while government responded against them. They just switch who the good and bad guys are. But the fact is, it's just mythology, the reality is that big business was always a result of state cronyism, and the so-called progressive heroes like FDR were actually allied with big business. A large segment of businessmen at the time had a technocratic bent and were willing to cough up some money in exchange for more rationalization of the economy.
But regardless of one's opinion on markets vs government, the desirability of pushing of this has nothing to do with pure capitalism or socialism or whatever. You can be a socialist who thinks markets are innately harmful and need strong government regulation and accept that laws which unfairly favor big business and suppress competition ought to be gotten rid of.
edited 26th Mar '16 5:57:50 PM by CassidyTheDevil
The Sanders path to victory: Wisconsin, then New York, then California
In other words, Sanders can still possibly win, but it requires a real long shot and probably for some of Clinton's superdelegates to break ranks.
edited 26th Mar '16 7:17:17 PM by Ramidel

My voter registration hasn't changed, and is still active. But I'm registered "No Affiliation" which means I can't vote in the PA primary.
Pennsylvania's primary is not "winner takes all" — the party rules are confusing, but only a small fraction of the delegates are actually "locked in" by the primary results. The majority of the delegates remain "unpledged" and are free to vote for whoever they choose.
This normally doesn't matter very much, since party nominations are usually a foregone conclusion by the time PA's primary comes up. This year is different, though. PA is one of the last major state primaries, so it could have a significant influence.
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