Why meritocracy is a LIE... (it's way worse than people realize)

[@TheMarketExit]

Important message from Petter Larsson, who I interview in the video: "Dear viewers, I am truly pleased that so many have watched this video and taken an interest in my book. ”Riggat” has however only been published in Swedish. A British magazine has translated one chapter, which you can find here: braveneweurope.com/petter-larsson-its-not-the-economy-stupid-its-the-respect I would myself be happy to have editons in different languages, because even though most of my facts in the book are about Sweden, the general problems I talk about are common to most countries. The best way to get an English edition published is probably to have a British or American publishing house contact my swedish one. They can be reached at: [e-mail] In the meantime I recommend these books on the same subject: ”The tyranny of merit”, by American philosopher Michael Sandel (2020), ”Against meritocracy” by British cultural studies professor Jo Littler (2018) and, of course, the classic ”The rise of the meritocracy” by British sociologist Michael Young (1958)."

[@remyrdd]

J'espère qu'une maison d'édition française passera par là. En attendant, merci pour les recommandations en anglais et l'encouragement à apprendre le suédois.

[@MrJanes-cl5sj]

yea you want to stay away from making generalizations in this situation because working harder has never meant success thats absurd. Temperament, intelligence and education bring you success. These are qualities rarely found in tantum in the less fortunate social demographics. Intelligent well mannered people general don't have hard time keeping or finding jobs.

[@landilandlandiland4357]

Copy paste that bad boy in ChatGPT, you’re welcome

[@AlexAnastaso]

but we are not equal, if u give the same tools to everyone u will have different results, how much more wealth u deserve as engineer if ur machine have better performance by 30% is 30% percent, not 90% more wealth, but if i get paid 2 or 3 times more then u can talk for unfairness, therefore only analogy exists as equality, equality is a lie

[@AlexAnastaso]

we are not equal but we can become analogous , if i am better 3o % percent it's unfair to get paide 3 times my perfomance, but real equality doesnt exist, the only inequality is inaccuracy

[@cn8412]

The nobility never really disappears. It's all about re-branding.

[@XOPOIIIO]

Actually it does disappear. Watch how they live in Britain, their riches are constantly shrinking. People who are rich today did everything in one or two generations, they are not nobility.

[@cn8412]

@@XOPOIIIO Nah, someone else will take their place. Someone else will be doing almost no work for all the money.

[@XOPOIIIO]

​@@cn8412 You're not getting money for work, you're getting it for value. You can't compare a work done by a bricklayer, and a work done by Jeff Bezos. Even if they were equally tiring, one provided the entire nation with cheap and available goods, another just made a couple of walls.

[@cn8412]

@@XOPOIIIO Yeah, 'cause Bezos appears at your door with the goods, right? That's why he deserves all the money.

[@BuXnAMaN]

That is why they fear communism more than anything else, they were even willing to finance Hitler to stop it.

[@dukewilliam3660]

Think about how many people die with their talents, simply because they were born into the wrong environment.

[@robertedwards3551]

Brilliant! This is one of the most overlooked aspects of inequality of opportunity and its the opportunity cost to the wider society of the added-value lost because we failed to nurture everyone. Marketers know this, they know that numbers and attrition matters and that extending an offer to many pays for itself by winning with just a few. Thank you, I feel a little less lonely now.

[@KamalasNotLikeUs]

This is questionable. It takes more than mere talent to be the best. Many of the greatest talents perish, but those who are talented and ambitious enough to fight their way through will rise.

[@Bleilock1]

I feel im in the same category and im having an existential crisis...cant really escape the poverty and the life of constant...well non-creative work...

[@rodrigomartins4104]

That's what I feel about myself. Almost a half-century living above the Earth, and it was just in the last few years I realized that all my talents and gifts were waisted away for nothing. I didn't have the ticket to the stars. Now I need to be thankful for at least having a low-wage s*y job that fits only to put food on the table and not much more than that.

[@glennrasmussen56]

Avtually no one is born with any talents. They are formed through education and training

[@meucantogames6952]

As a Brazilian, I can confirm that here in Brazil there's huge inequality and a fanatical belief in meritocracy to the point I cannot openly speak against this cult at work under the certainty of being fired on the spot. The HR can justify my demise just by saying "no cultural fit". There's also serious academic research on social mobility proving the same families are at the top in the last 5 centuries and for one poor black guy to rise to an average" income is akin to winning a lottery, a very cruel one.

[@hachiroku8677]

I'm Brazilian, and I should say most Brazilians are HYPOCRITICALS af. They brag about "meritocracy," but at the same time, they are the ones voting for free shit out of the government. Brazilians say you should work hard to get to the top, but they become envious when you progress in life, but they never leave the start line. They are like crabs in a bucket, always pulling down the ones who could escape it. They don't realize that the same aristocratic elite uses government power to keep them from improving their situation. Elites have made people addicted to social security. Almost 50% of Brazil's population doesn't work and lives out of the welfare state. Birth rates are also declining pretty fast, especially among the middle class. Brazil will become a nation of poor, illiterate seniors. The only way for an average Brazilian to live a decent life in Brazil is through a government job. It offers higher pay and stability. It's just like Chris Rock once said: "You most likely can't be whatever you want in life... You can be whatever you're good at if they hire you. And it will be of great help to know somebody."

[@Rak-Nay]

Fanatic believe in meritocracy? Dont be ridiculous is exactly rhe oposite, teatchers in schools teach against meritocracy. Dont lie.

[@andresmiguelcervantes4818]

That's how it is in Texas.

[@thescribe3184]

It's like that here in the U.S.A. too.

[@sugoruyo]

The rise of neo-fascist ideologies brings with it a form of anti-intellctualism as well. The neo-fascism is disguised but the anti-intellectualism is not, just look at the attacks on all forms of education in the last 10 years. I bring this up because I was recently hanging out with a group of people here in England which includes Venezuelan, Brazilian, Argentinian, Colombian and Cuban migrants, I myself having migrated from Greece during its own crisis, and it was fascinating to witness the absolutely fanatical belief of these people in this idea of meritocracy and that if people are poor it's because they're not trying hard enough. I failed to break through to them even when using an example of my own privilege: my parents sent me to private school (they were barely able to pay for it but still), I thenI had about €100k worth of publicly provided education in Greece in the form of a computer science bachelor's degree, paid for by taxpayer euros and then went on to study in Scotland for a master's degree paid for by inheriting about £30k from my mum's aunt. That led to a career that where I'd change jobs about every two years with a doubling of net salary every jump until I got to six figure salaries, earning roughly 3x the average for London. All these people simply never had these opportunities, they all pretty much work as receptionists, retail workers, delivery drivers and assistant car mechanics. 2 out of 13 have nascent tech careers, powered by their own learning and effort and I think that's a large part of what it is: a combination of confirmation and survivorship bias. They look at me and they look at the two that have made it out of the quagmire that is minimum wage work in the UK and think that's proof that the system works. They fail to see that they work much harder or that the two new-fangled front-end web devs have only a sliver of a chance to lock down a career path that takes them to six figure incomes because the specialised knowledge that gets rewarded with that kind of money requires you to have the privilege to spend years learning it without worrying too much about making ends meet. When I point out that, statistically, those of us that make it out are the outliers, I get told that sociology is "fake science of wokeness". This trend has been steadily gaining traction in the last decade where, no matter what scientific evidence you have, it is dismissed as the product of "woke bias" or, worse, a conspiracy of cultural marxists (a neo-Nazi dogwhistle) to destroy the western value of meritocracy in order to bring down the west and usher in a new era of Chinese communist dominance.

[@causalitymastered]

The big shock starts after high school graduation when you see people with a bad GPA getting picked for job positions over 4.0s just because they are friends with the hiring manager.

[@d3vilman69]

Sadly, that is reality. In working society and politics, Connections and Networking are crucial factors for success. Individual capability is secondary. That's why you see many incompetent morons being placed in supervisor/managerial positions even though they have no merit to qualify for those positions

[@Steve-cs7pq]

Knowing, liking staff has greater value than memorizing in school. Prejudice abounds there and everwhere

[@ironmangler]

it's not who you are, it's who you know, networking 101. That being said, being talented AND knowing people still yields better results than knowing people and no talent.

[@causalitymastered]

@@ironmangler The problem is that employers are giving more value to networking and neglecting ability, then, they have employees that become liabilities instead of assets to the company. To this situation, add the fact that companies expect you to have 5+ years of work experience in the line of work you are applying to when you just came out of school. Apprenticeships and internships are very scarce and usually are in a line of work that has nothing to do with what you studied. Most college students end up frustrated flipping burgers or cleaning toilets while having the student loan eating at the little paycheck they get from the temporary job that eventually becomes permanent and moving back with their parents or living with roommates. This is why the entire world is screwed.

[@causalitymastered]

@@Steve-cs7pq Memorizing is not learning. You learn something when it becomes an automatic reflex, like writing, reading, playing a musical instrument, driving the car, speaking a language, etc. If you have to go back to the book or the internet to refresh, you never learned it.

[@letsRegulateSociopaths]

Anyone in America who thinks that anyone can become rich by "working hard" has never tried to. It's all the same until you realize that to make money the most important thing is having money...

[@dontbeafool]

I tried it and it worked. Sure it takes money to make money. If you don't start with it, hard work with a little bit of brain will get you money.

[@scottcincinnatikid9804]

My experience has been the people I know that have money have worked hard to get it. I'm sure there are numerous examples where that isn't the case, but if you don't have wealth and want it, it will take a lot of work, unless you want to take it from someone else.

[@HazemeII]

the only thing worse than America is everywhere else. I'm curious how old you are, if you think you can't make it work in America.

[@carlwhite4233]

@@scottcincinnatikid9804 Yes, usually those with stuff work hard for it... but so do those with nothing... I mean MOST of us work 50 hours a week, whether we've got much of anything or not.

[@carlwhite4233]

@@HazemeII Social mobility is higher in western Europe than the US... Sometimes I wonder if the "ignorance is bliss" approach isn't better. We often disrupt peaceful, more equal, places with our trade and advertising. The people in these places didn't realize they were so poor before we can in and told them so.

[@snakeplisken2123]

Every boss I ever had has some story about how they had $50 to their name had just gotten married and had a baby on the way and they built their business from nothing. Then you get to know them and you end up meeting their family and associates, that’s when you found out they got an interest free loan of $250,000 in 1990’s dollars without any expectation of ever paying it back.

[@errrzarrr]

Every. Single. Time.

[@capsjukebox]

Yeah, the ‘Friends and Family’ loan is the basis for every tech start up that acts like they began in a garage.

[@stoferb876]

I'm from the lower class here in Sweden, and never ever I have heard about believing that our society is a meritocracy. On the contrary the going mantra when I grew up was "Life is not fair". Not as a call for change but as a saying that it's pointless to get upset about injustices since they are everywhere and unavoidable. A bit like when you say this or that is unfair, and the answer is: So what? Life isn't fair. My grandfather was very agitated and upset about how the social wellfare state he had contributed to building up was getting degraded and corrupted and gradually starting to be destroyed when he retired (and this was in the 80ies). My mother had stories about how still in her child-hood, the 1940ies and 1950ies, the local big wigs children had been favored by the teacher to basically steal another students grades so they could get in to some high school despite actually failing their studies. So when I hear about how many swedes now believe in some kind of meritocracy it just boggles my mind. Where is it? Pray tell.

[@karambiatos]

"A bit like when you say this or that is unfair, and the answer is: So what? Life isn't fair." I hate this, you should complain you should speak about it.

[@michaeljohndennis2231]

@@karambiatosthings will never change, that’s just the way it is - the more things change, the more things stay the same, even get worse, especially if we attempt to complain about it, as it is deemed on a common sense basis, that as the lower classes, we do not have any right to make any comments on any issues, as coming from us, it will never be listened to and will never be taken seriously, as it is deemed to be inappropriate - we are merely to be seen and not heard and to know our place, as there is no real equality, except in shared misery and shared suffering

[@ryanseddon4800]

It’s valuable that you point out your grandfather was upset with these destructive attitudes….. In Sweden and many other countries it is accepted that such attitudes have always been around and that its cultural to say “so what, that’s life”…… The truth is that this is a recent swing that took social engineering to become cultural.

[@iggoz]

My teatcher used to say that the only thing thats fair is that we all will die. This was like 2000 in sweden.

[@felixlagemann8109]

Isn't university free in Sweden? I don't understand how you're locked into the lower class in Sweden.

[@paulpease8254]

I taught at a private high school in the Bay Area where parents essentially bought grades for their kids. They would brag about using personal connections to get their kids valuable opportunities that were supposed to be merit-based. I caught an 18 year old student selling cocaine at the school and it was swept under the rug, no police involved. It crushed my soul and was sickening.

[@redgrant4897]

Yea, and with all the test prep courses and expensive extracurricular activities the kids you taught had access to, they all got in to UCLA, Stanford, Cal and the Ivy League. You need a top school to get hired these days. To even think about getting a career going.

[@paulpease8254]

@@redgrant4897 Yes and no. These kids never had the risk of failing. I disagree that you can’t have a career unless you went to a top school. I’ve worked with plenty of people who ended up with professional careers that didn’t go to a top school. Of course going to a top school increases the odds of a better career. So much of success in the professional world comes down to your network, and people from families with money and who go to top schools have valuable networks.

[@redgrant4897]

@@paulpease8254 There are 2 choices these days and ONLY 2 choices: top school or LICENSED professional (RN, DDS, MD, CPA and 1 or 2 more) That is it. I tell poor young girls / boys a great way to get out of poverty and help their family is nursing. However, the licensed RN route is a long road and you must be committed early. However, it is attainable. A girl from a poor family who graduates from the nursing program at a Chico or Long Beach State - if she passes the NCLEX - can make over 100 K early in her career. Only graduates from Brown and Stanford - with worthless degrees in political science or history - get to work in the marketing department at Facebook, Apple or Google.

[@elseby]

Shoulda been a whistle blower or leaked it to the press. But I bet the pay was good enough to buy your soul

[@paulpease8254]

@@elseby actually, I barely made enough money to live, had no health insurance or paid time off. My wife was pregnant and had no health insurance. So yeah, I sold my soul to keep a roof over our head. F you, you sack of s.

[@sethlogee]

The even crazier thing is conservatives that I personally know that work really hard but are either working poor or lower middle class at best believing in meritocracy 😢

[@honkhonk8009]

In the 70s-90s, Meritocracy worked within the lower class to upper middle class. Wasnt a thing for the uber wealthy. In the modern day, companies have access to india/china. Countries where human life is cheaper than a chatgpt subscription, and where educated professions such as Engineers and Scientists, are a dime a dozen. We never had the automation revolution promised to us, because human life is litterally cheaper than machines are. Amazon hires indians instead of AI. Cobalt mines hire African children, instead of mining equipment. People get fearmongered to blame Automation, when they should really be blaming outsourcing. Outsourcing brought endless wealth to the elite of Korea, and plunged the rest of Korea into rampant poverty. Same in America. Same in Canada. Same in Europe. Were returning back to feudalism for a reason. The only reason we got out of feudalism, was cus the population plummeted in Europe due to war, and feudal lords were forced to compete over peasants. The problem with leftists is they understand the problem. But they dont know any solution beyond the "naive solution" of just banning shit. Blue Collar Workers have spent decades making sure their jobs couldnt be outsourced to India/China or given to Illegals. Now their making the money software engineers wouldv been making, had we unionized and voted against globalism. Leftists need to vote for people like Sanders, and Republicans need to vote for people like Trump. Both anti-globalism candidates that are against outsourcing. Outsourcing only makes the wealthy exponentially wealthier.

[@buenos4799]

You are confusing two different things: a) believing that meritocracy is good (if we had such system, instead of having nepotism), b) believing that we currently have a meritocracy.

[@frankmalenfant2828]

My parents, who were born in the 60's in Canada, do believe in meritocracy more than I do. And I thought I had a great argument with them by highlighting how much they had to struggle to make it from poor minimum wage workers to make it to the middle class. I asked my mother wether she believed that the likes of Donald Trump or Elon Musk had worked thousands of times more than her to become billionaires. To me, it's a no-brainer. I've seen my parents work so hard and make so many sacrifices just so my sister and I could go through college education and have a better life, I thought they would appreciate the amount of effort that they put in as much as I do. But they don't. They have been made to believe that their lower middle class position is because they are not smart enough, or didn't try hard enough. This is what is heart breaking about the meritocracy myth : it crushes the souls of the good, hard working people who created the value that enriched some well born people who owned the companies they worked with before they were even born. Since then, I use every chance I have to underline how hard they have worked, and smart and hard working they are. This strategy seems to work much better against their "class shame", because it builds their confidence. Don't let other people belittle the efforts you know you have put in your life. Don't let yourself be ashamed of the limits your condition put on your ability to succeed.

[@blueodum]

I, like your parents, was born in Canada in the 60s. My parents were immigrants and they had no choice but to scramble everyday for the first 20 years or so, just to survive. After that, life became more comfortable. By the time I was 6 years old, we lived in a decent suburban neighbourhood, being on the lower income end of that neighbourhood. But me and my sisters all went to decent (not great) publicly-funded schools and eventually to university. We all graduated. My oldest sister worked the hardest and has built a career and become part of the upper middle class (if not quite rich). I was the "laziest" and have had a modest income and lifestyle my whole adult life. None of us had doors opened to us that might have led to being among the 1%, nor do we really care about that. In my opinion, as long as the ordinary citizen has a good level of prosperity and all people are able to live in dignity, society has done its job. Unfortunately, these days conditions for the poor and middle class in most developed countries are worse than a generation ago.

[@chrismcgrory1691]

Elon musk wasnt born a billionaire, he was a child prodigy at one point writing programs as a teenager that made him rich, he then re-invested it and made more

[@nicolerubin7368]

​@chrismcgrory1691 where do you find this information about him being a prodigy? He was born into wealth that he used to try his hand at endeavors that could be profitable

[@chrismcgrory1691]

@@nicolerubin7368 google it, he made his first million before age 18

[@waleuska]

@@chrismcgrory1691 Lol musk have fallen upwards. Every company he start went belly up. Without all of the government grants and money tesla and space C wouldn't be a thing.

[@johnkeane1419]

Survivorship bias is an important feature of social mobility narratives.

[@kingcuckoo]

You're a little biased too. It's fucked for young people right now but historically America has constantly delivered on the dream.

[@johnkeane1419]

@@kingcuckoo Do you know what survivorship bias is?

[@leviathanv3135]

America has constantly delivered on the dream.😒

[@dukewilliam3660]

Best comment. This forms the basis of meritocracy mindset “I did it so anybody else can just do the same thing I did and get the same results”.

[@rickr530]

@@dukewilliam3660 Sure, take the lottery for example: Interview all the winners and they will believe in the system, anyone can buy a beer and a ticket at 7-11 and if you keep at it long enough you can win too! It discounts the far larger group of people who tried harder and still failed to win the lottery. That's true of a lot of "got rich quick" success stories, where a big risk payed off for a fortunate few who then create a genius narrative around their success stories. I think America still affords a lot of opportunity to people, however, and there really are paths that anyone can take which will generally be successful, but making different major life choices than your friends, family, and surrounding community is extremely difficult for so many reasons. People are so greatly influenced by those around them: a neighbor or a teacher who encourages taking a chance, a friend who believes in your talent, a successful relative who gives a bit of advice, etc. The company you keep (which isn't always a choice) affects the opportunities you seek.

[@DadamWrites]

I'm in the US. While my perspective is limited, I see a pattern. Meritocracy exists within your social class. It does not exist between classes. The "modern nobility" serve as the judges of merit toward the lower classes. Between them, money and power are the measures of merit (hence all the wealth hoarding and careful mythologizing - they "win" through those activities). Stories of mobility inevitably fail to count the misses alongside the hits. Oprah succeeded. Cool. How many people failed to be noticed and promoted? My boss makes great money. She retires in a few years. At least 5 well-qualified, good people want her job and work for it all the time. I'm not one of them. None of them will get it. One of the management favorites will.

[@buenos4799]

Which state? When I lived in Silicon Valley, I experienced meritocracy, then I moved to Florida, and here they retaliate for even implying that there could be a bit of meritocracy. For example, providing an idea on a meeting, or not promoting one of the stupidest persons to be the new "subject matter expert".

[@Thinkofwhat]

I think the ruling class in western countries don't have meritocracy but instead aristocracy, nepotism, oligarchy and mob rule. As an individual growing up in the west yes there is meritocracy by doing great in school to university......but once you entered politics meritocracy stopped working but social connections, nepotism, networking and all but definitely Not Meritocracy.

[@hainleysimpson1507]

Same thing in the workplace. Networking and social connections are more important.

[@spnked9516]

It's a fundamental misunderstanding of how societies function to think that any society doesn't have its own ruling elite, or that having ruling elite is a bad thing in the first place. The vast majority of people in a given population don't actually progress the society/civilization they're apart of - they merely maintain it (not that I wish to downplay the importance of this). It's always a small group of people who push social changes or technological innovations (for better and worse). This small group forms the elite ruling class of a society and basically just drags the rest of the population in whichever direction they choose. The reason why European civilizations (generally speaking) surpassed and outright dominated the rest of the world was because they were able to strike a balance between merchant/state/church while facilitating a flow of capable people between them or into them. As a result, social mobility in the West was (and still is) the highest in the world, which aided in preventing any one given group of elite from becoming too entrenched and stagnant. Interestingly enough - the west has become notably less meritorious and more prone to stagnation with the collapse of balance between merchant/state/church groups (with the church falling out of favour completely and merchant and state becoming increasingly incestuous). Compounding the problem is our massive issue with our inverted age demographics (basically too many old people with vested interests and too few young people to rock the boat).

[@Thejenner1]

​@@spnked9516 i think that is very well described, i have the same opinion and it is the restoration og this balance that is needed to have western civilisation move forward positively again...

[@kingcuckoo]

​@@spnked9516 America and the rest of the West differ in this way though. The ruling elite and who progresses society is usually different because progress and innovation hurts the ruling elites. That's why Europe is so against new businesses and has progressive taxes. It is to keep people poor and not hurt the social structure. In America every generation has new people getting rich and messing up the class structure in very prominent ways. Goes to show if you really want a meritocracy create a free market and enforce competition.

[@rickr530]

@@hainleysimpson1507 Workplace politics are inevitable. Many of us go into it thinking we should be able to do our jobs better than everyone else and get ahead, but it rarely works so simply. Your manager will view the situation as working out well and have no desire to change it. Getting ahead might seem like nepotism and favoritism but it's more about making a broader impact, operating at a level beyond your individual responsibilities, and standing out to your management not because of how well you do your job but by how well you help them accomplish their goals. You must open your eyes to the fact that the tasks they give you are not their end goals, they are stepping stones. Getting more involved in the big picture requires knowing more people, increasing communication, and being more social in general.

[@aq8211]

“Its called the american dream because you have to be asleep to believe it” - George Carlin

[@TheMarketExit]

That's great!

[@davidlafleche1142]

The American Dream did exist, but it was killed by Government overspending.

[@FINNSTIGAT0R]

@@TheMarketExit Also in every comment section which handle things like this

[@TheThinker43]

You can sit around and complain or you can get you butt in gear and go be valuable to people , learn a skill , trade , start a business or work for someone else and be excellent then you’ll be the guy that’s doing well. It’s a law of the universe

[@brianthatweirdbarberguy]

​@@TheThinker43it's like you didn't even watch the video

[@SrhNjd]

Cognitive dissonance.. the rich need to believe that they have earned their privileges in order to enjoy it without a devourer guilt

[@matthair8324]

I wish this belief were limited merely to wealth. It actually follows status, as well. People, in even modest positions of power, will attempt to dislodge any perceived threat to that security. That's how our system has decayed. The social constructs of "glass ceiling, gatekeeping," and, " suck-up," are not universally understood without the reality of being universally applied. Sadly, showing any degree of skill or competence immediately sets a target on that individual. From both the co-workers, and the middle management. Both for very different reasons. The cheese has slid right off the cracker.

[@ramonbril]

aristocracy is the word you're searching for. Our's is about 300 years in power now. Those who don't know aren't powerful enough to know.

[@elbowstrike]

It’s true American elections are almost entirely decided by the amount of funds raised and the candidates who make it to the presidential ticket are decided by the amount of money they get from America’s 400 wealthiest families.

[@fluiddynamics3591]

Yes, would be so much better if society was instead run by communist politicians.

[@baz1184]

​@@elbowstrikethat is only because the money enables them to put out more campaign material, and the public are more swayed to vote for whoever they see the most billboards for rather than policy.

[@GBD81]

@@baz1184both sides playing the same game. Feed the narrative, the lineage families are the only who truly prosper. The story has never changed, only passed down through blood line. So if you don’t know what I’m saying than you don’t get it. YET, too hard to hide and now people are waking up to the unfortunate realization that the matrix is real. Matrix is the reality for which all are born and the societal structure that you’re indoctrinated into with your birth certificate so you can be “charged” for everything.

[@crgo1008]

​@@baz1184yeah that's why money works

[@kenpanderz]

"your chains are earned by the parents you choose to have." i think this statement neatly sums up the mental gymnastics of the idea of a meritocracy.

[@TheAsianRepublican]

Intelligence and Self Awareness is a spectrum. By definition, 50% of people are below average in Intelligence. And the bottom 25% to 30% is really really done in by Nature, where the Nurture can do nothing for them. The Normal curve is real. That's just math and statistics.

[@honkhonk8009]

Im indian for context. Nobody actually realizes why were returning to feudalism. Before the enlightenment, feudal lords had many peasants die, forcing them to compete over peasants, thus giving peasants power. This ushered in equality. Now we have overpopulated countries like India and China. And now were going back to feudalism. Why would a business value a software developer from home with their high wages and labor laws, when they can hire an Indian to simply do the same work. Human life in India/China is litterally cheaper than a chatgpt subscription. The very existence of their labor markets, makes you less valuable, and gives you less opportunities to move up unless you have nepo-connections. In the 50's, corporations had a literal incentive to train and protect engineers themselves. They had the same with workers too. Litterally the inverse nowadays.

[@Q_QQ_Q]

Stf0 . China is a developed country while India is a c@ste discrimination hellh0le.

[@GggG-tb1mx]

Did india ever go through feudalism,i thought yall delt with your own form of it in the caste system

[@noisepuppet]

It used to be mainly the high status jobs that were traded as favors among the well connected. These days, even low status, low paying salaried positions are already spoken for by the time you apply for them. And whoever's niece or nephew gets the job, the chances are higher than ever that they don't have even the minimum advertised qualifications. And applying for good jobs in my field has gotten 20x harder and more tedious than when I started, with HR systems that require all kinds of redundant, useless info, plus several essay-style answers to open ended questions. Used to be a nice resume and thoughtful cover letter on nice stationery was all you needed. Now you expend ridiculous effort, only to hear "we've hired someone else" so quickly that there could not have been a legit selection process, and you were never in the running. It's infuriating.

[@darklordvadermort]

counterpoint i run a small business and my brother is extremely reliable while random people i hire much less so. wish i had 3 brothers lol.

[@somerandomvertebrate9262]

When national solidarity is replaced by kin solidarity, due the nation being phased-out and replaced by "diversity", this is how it goes.

[@user-nu8in3ey8c]

In law enforcement agencies, and most government agencies, it is well known that when they interview for certain positions they already know who they want before the job requisition is even posted.

[@noisepuppet]

@@darklordvadermort I don't criticize small family businesses on the same basis as large organizations. And if you know you're going to hire your brother, I'll bet you don't place a nationwide ad for the position and make hundreds of applicants jump through hoops just to pipe their applications straight into the toilet. And I'll bet your brother is qualified for the position. So you and I have no disagreement.

[@somerandomvertebrate9262]

As you scrap the nation, i.e the ethnic group, as the main benefactor of the social contract and replace this with "diversity", national solidarity will also get replaced by kin solidarity. That's what's going on here.

[@1rjona]

Poor are poor because the effort to become rich is too much for one man People percieve that as being lazy What it really means is that it takes more than 1 generation for most people to change thier circumstances Andrew Carnegie is an example. People see a Scottish weaver's son who became richest American in the world What people don't see is his family saving enough to move to US. Where he got his oppurtunity to become rich So he alone without effort of his poor family would not have been a sucess And social mobility goes both ways. His descendants may still be rich but for sure, none are as rich as Andrew Carnegie

[@aureyd2515]

Once you are above or below a certain level, the easier it is to be held there.

[@1rjona]

@@aureyd2515 gravity has a tendency to pull you down. A generation or two after a man makes his riches, his descendants tend to squander it

[@wyganter]

Unlike most tycoons of The Gilded Age, Carnegie gave away the bulk of his money.

[@1rjona]

@@wyganter that's what Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are trying to emulate

[@porcudracului]

​@@aureyd2515yes, and what's a rich person to do? Leave everything to the poor so that his children start from 0? Or what's the society to do about it? Steal it, because meritocracy? This is what's presented S a viable solution. Disgusting. Leveling the field my ass, it's theft in the name of equality

[@johnlessar9428]

It is a rigged system. I blame much of it on nepotism. I retired from a family owned grocery chain. No one outside of the family ran the company. Senior level jobs were reserved for the family. To their credit, they did a great job running the company. But, the whole system seemed at it's core rotten and putrid.

[@Justin.Martyr]

*DonaLd Trump Has Been Diagnosed as a SociaL Path!!!* *ME; I have been Diagnosed as a Psycho Path!!!* *Wut is the Difference & who is the BeTTer ONE???*

[@truthseeker327]

has been always like that in many family run businesses. Management control hardly does outside the family. The children are groomed to look after the business

[@johnlessar9428]

@@truthseeker327 That is how it is done. That does not make it right or fair. My whole point is merit is a noble intent and not the rule in how things get done. Far from it in fact.

[@blueodum]

I've never met an intelligent person who really believes that we live in a meritocracy. The closest thing to it is probably professional sports, where there are more objective measures of achievement, and the competitive imperative encourages everyone to promote the most skilled players.

[@silviuvisan505]

Lol nba says otherwise. Everyone is connected to someone.

[@MauriceB-zn5pv]

It’s the closest thing to meritocracy I can think of…. For the athletes.

[@iannisbet3882]

Professional sports ain't a meritocracy either.If your born poor no matter your ability are you really thinking they can become golf,tennis or F1 drivers?No chance.Nature is the only true meritocracy...

[@smb2735]

If you know the tricks, you can give someone access to training from a young age and vastly over-prepare them compared to peers. Same issues with different flavor.

[@acegikm]

@@smb2735 Money will make every aspect of someone's life easier. This is common sense and it's why I don't excuse the a--holes saying poor people need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and other nonsense.

[@AsokaTw-mz3lr]

Same in India too. rich always stays rich, celebrity kids always stay popular.

[@rickr530]

How would they not. If your family has already ascended the socioeconomic ladder to the top, descendants have to make mistakes to fall back down to the bottom again. We don't expect children of the middle class to fall back to poverty and work their way back up to middle class again, but the whole world resents upper class and elite children. I understand it, it's unfair, but life is not fair for any animal in the kingdom. Resentment and jealousy are a toxic burden, it is better to seek opportunities and improve your own life than to complain about the unfair fortunes of others.

[@claymadness]

If anything, we’re really seeing the fallout of such widespread inequality of wealth, opportunity, and access in India. Things tend to get exacerbated here because of the sheer population numbers so there are massive numbers of privileged kids and an even greater - far greater - number of young and old people with no social privilege or capacity for social mobility at all. This creates the mentality of losers and winners with the latter obsessed with achieving wealth, power and economic stability at any cost which is what you see with the whole push for the “engineering-business school” approach. While that gives stability, this group still lacks any real power - not that one would need to hunt for it in a society that doesn’t privilege these things - which makes them feel insecure in comparison to the wealthy and influential above them who were born into it. Similarly, those below the educated middle classes look at them and feel socially and economically insecure. And so on and so on. If there’s one damning reality about India at this moment, it’s the fact that we have among the largest number of billionaires in the world while having a laughable per capita income given GDP size.

[@kevanbodsworth9868]

@@rickr530 Those who believe they have climbed a ladder or their parents are deluded , but that aside, all you ever hear from most is paranoia about decending to a condition where they have to prove their worth again by "hard work " a condition which they find completely ok for other people, The intellectual dishonesty of the easy wealth group is great - The lies they tell themselves are many and the blinkeres they see life through are very large--

[@kevanbodsworth9868]

@@rickr530 " Life is not fair " true But wha do you strive so much to keep it that way, ,, as @stoferb876 wrote it is just an excuse not to do anything about it not contribute to reducing it or blocking measures to reduce the unfair outcomes, That is when your position becomes suspect , I am from wealthy background and know how they tick , Blnkered,

[@crgo1008]

​@rickr530 so you are saying people should just accept that some people have unfair advantages because that's "how the world works" . But that resentment from lower classes its also a natural part of the world, si its also not going to change, at the end there is only one choice to make, to work for yourself and your people, or to work for everyone, there is no middle ground, one of them creates better work than the other.

[@desertoasis255]

As an Easterner I disagree with the premise in the introduction. The world did NOT realise "All men are equal" in the Enlightment. This is just the Europe coming from their Dark Ages.

[@publichearing8536]

lol

[@ila9063]

Also, "all men are equal" implies a particular definition of the word men. Note: it did not include women or people of colour

[@charlieread2097]

So you’re saying that other parts of the world held comparable ideas to the European enlightenment beforehand? That’s an interesting idea, I’d be interested in seeing some original sources that communicate Lockean ideas in other parts of the ideas prior to the 17th century. Also, the ‘dark ages’ describes the era from the 5th century to the 9th century, typically said to end with Charlemagne; very long time before the enlightenment. The idea that Europe was especially backwards in the Middle Ages is troubled by a number of facts, not least that Europe circa 1000-1500 created the oldest extant universities in the world, gothic cathedrals - the tallest and arguably most complex buildings ever to that point and was at the cutting edge of technologies such as glass.

[@desertoasis255]

@charlieread2097 A good start would be Roy Casagrabda lectures here on youtube about Islamic Civilization. He also explain the link to other Civilizations. Then you can do more research about it and you will discover the amount of plagiarism by Europeans. Usually their animosity towards other cultures made them not mention sources. Basically the "Enlightment" was who steals most from other civilization and taking credit for it. The amount of knowledge left in Andalusia alone is astonishing.

[@dxcSOUL]

So when did the East discover this truth? As an, "Easterner," myself the East STILL has issues with ideas on equality as Confucian ideals have continued to choke its people for centuries. Hierarchy is paramount in the East. More so than the west. to this day.

[@sirtree9080]

I've always viewed meritocracy as deceptive because those who determine whether or not You've earned any given thing, tend to move the goal posts at their leisure. Meanwhile, those who are busy "earning" this or that remain effectively stuck in time consuming futility.

[@PropagandasaurusRex]

True, and anyone can see this plainly at their own workplace. People are rarely promoted based on merit alone (if at all), it almost always involves some kind of personal preference of the promoting manager. Working harder almost never pays off, but working smarter (trading production for networking and playing workplace politics) has a much bigger succes rate.

[@erikeippel]

BEST COMMENT AND ON ANOTHER LEVEL!

[@dpfitforlife81]

If you rely on a job as your only source of income and you think that will insure your success in life you might as well give up now!!! With that said I do not believe his argument totally invalidates meritocracy.

[@dpfitforlife81]

@@PropagandasaurusRex I agree with you 99.9%, but I would say if you are the laziest person in your workplace and everybody knows it. I doubt you will get the promotion unless there is something else in play and even the workplace politics should not over come this.

[@carlgauss1702]

This.

[@DropBox-jx6yr]

It’s been documented that OPRAH LIED ABOUT HER CHILDHOOD. Her own family even confronted her and asked her why she’d lie about the poverty and abuse. She told them that it’s what the media wanted to hear. So don’t believe anything she says.

[@romankogler9872]

This re-writing your CV is frequent among the rich. While perhaps 1% of today's billionaires has made it up from the bottom, 99% claim to be one of them.

[@revolutionaryhamburger]

Oprah has repeatedly claimed she was abused by adult men in her family. She has claimed she had forced adult relationships from an early age, and that abuse informed her adult worldview. Why would she lie about that?

[@highonsmog]

So she lied on the biggest resume, the one of her life? Eegads!

[@IusedtohaveausernameIliked]

Just because Americans WANT to be lied to, doesn't mean that one should oblige. And it's certainly not a valid justification.

[@BeautifulEarthJa]

Where can I find this?

[@jnellie1970]

In my high school there was a fairly clear delineation between rich and the middle class/poor. The wealthy lived in “the cove”, a large suburb on the mountain side. The rest of us lived somewhere below the boulevard (large street that basically separated the two areas). I had friends in both areas. One of my best friends drove a Porsche, other good friends rode the bus or walked to school. At our 30 year reunion I have a distinct memory of standing on a set of stairs while talking with a number of people, old friends, etc. But there was one thing that was starkly consistent at that moment. The kids who grew up in the “cove” area where significantly more successful than the majority of those who lived below the “boulevard”. Americans have a habit of asking about “so, what do you do for work” at the beginning of most new conversations (from what I understand, this question is really rare in France or much of Europe). The wealthy, for the most part, stayed wealthy while the middle/lower class stayed in the middle or lower income levels. Privilege matters, a lot. First of all, most wealth is now inherited. 2nd, if your parents are Dr’s your chance of getting into the best schools and being accepted into medical school are much higher (my own brother, who’s an MD has children who went to the same school he did…each are successful with degrees, etc). Same with businesses, the children learn how to run the business and also go to the best schools. Most of these don’t ever have the burden of massive school loans to pay back. Most of them don’t worry about where their next paycheck will come from or food insecurity, etc. This is a foreign concept to many of the wealthiest. For my bachelors degree, I had to take out 25k in loans. That’s now ballooned to 50k. My wife went back to school for a teaching degree after our last child was in kindergarten. Her school loans are about 40k (and rising). The student loan system in the US is messed up (search for John Oliver’s student debt episode). There’s also the point that if your parent is an MD, well…becoming an MD isn’t such a far fetched idea. Same with business owners, you’re trained from childhood on how businesses operate. There’s a built in mentorship in the family. Then there’s the genetic element. The wealthy are often intelligent and run in the same circles with other successful and intelligent people. So, they often marry highly intelligent spouses. I know that’s a controversial aspect, but there a lot of truth to it. While there’s a significant advantage to being born into wealth. There’s still the element of hard work. Medical school is extremely difficult, so is an MBA or getting your CPA, etc. Many of the wealthy still work very hard. Running a business requires hard work. It’s not that they don’t work hard or just sit around and do nothing. They usually have to sacrifice as well. I think many people don’t consider that concept. The wealthy still have to bust their butts to stay in the upper class (even if it’s generational wealth). They still have risk and failures and have to overcome much of what every person deals with, regardless of class. But…they have a head start. They begin their own journeys ahead of the rest. They have a much higher possibility of success when the starting line is 20 steps ahead of the rest of the group. Search for the “$100 bill race” to see a better example of this. My point is this, when your starting point is well ahead of the rest, you still have to run the race. You still have to work to cross the finish line. You still run the risk of falling or injury, etc. But it’s a shorter track for you over many, many others. Privilege matters, but it’s not everything.

[@dgillies5420]

People like to blame it on nepotism, but there was a book 20 years ago called ”Meaningful differences in early childhood education" that reported on research that upper-class kids hear 3 million words before the age of three, middle-class kids hear 2 million words, and lower class kids hear only 1 million. After reading this book I was at the post office and saw a 2-year-old pointing at everything in the post office and asking the parent "What's that?" I went home quite shook up (my kids didn't build vocab in such an organized way ...) Is it nepotism to teach your children well? It could be that people blame nepotism when they should (in part) be blaming their own parents... I am now upper class and my family was originally upper middle class. I am an interesting case because my father died before I hit puberty. There was no mentoring from him. However my mother and a grad student invested enormous efforts in getting me interested in computers which was my father's field. I would say the meritocracy applies not only to the people involved but to the parents and mentors of the people involved. One never succeeds merely on their own.. the parents play a huge role ... I am only in the upper class because the rest of my family is not (especially after my father's death). I was a professor but financial instability made me leave academia. Every year I earned an hourly wage starting at age 15 i out-earned everyone in my immediate family ... I think flexibility, luck, and risk taking also plays a role in success ..

[@stipostipo2051]

You lost me when You mention rich are intelligent. Their intelligence is no different from the average they often despise. Habit it´s not intelligence. Where they differ are the conditions.

[@rebeccaboudreau7589]

I totally bought into America being the greatest country because of meritocracy. Earning more than many people around me by working crazy hard reinforced this belief. Burnout, change in life and after 10 years of rethinking all of that, I see it as the greatest lie told Americans. I raised my children without those beliefs, and they are in the generation voting for major social and economic changes 🥰

[@minanovkiril]

US is the greatest shithole that ever existed

[@Mutantcy1992]

Yep, rich kiddies being raised as neomarxists, what a surprise. You got yours, right? Now, now that you have extracted value from capitalism, now it is time for it to end with a redistribution of wealth.

[@KamalasNotLikeUs]

Same. By 32, I had worked myself nearly to death. A woman at the SSA office looked at my record and said that I had worked more in 10 years than most people had worked in 30 years. I broke down when she said that. I realized that I wasn't disabled; I was getting sick so much because I was tired. I never returned to the SSA to complete my claim, but I stopped working like a slave.

[@noahraab2429]

Those systems were put in place by the same people shredding economic mobility. Why do you think they‘d give you a win condition?

[@ProgressIsTheOnlyEvolution]

The US is not a meritocracy the US is a capitalistic aristocracy and yes it is terrible.

[@AmanoJack]

In the US, he easier and more fun your job is, the more you're rewarded. People who do actual work are treated worse than animals in the US.

[@infobahnuser9450]

stop with the fu*#kn bullshit..jesus christ, grow up.

[@andersnielsen6044]

And that is what you have voted for - for centuries.. That was and is your dream :D

[@AmanoJack]

@andersnielsen6044 What makes you think I voted for this?

[@stuffilike6755]

Ever tour a slaughterhouse?

[@andersnielsen6044]

@@AmanoJack Both the liberals and the conservatives has the exploitation of the population as their core value.

[@Rwnjthe1st]

The issue is: 1) how many people born in poverty who are talented and hard working people fail? 2) how many untalented and lazy people are rich simply because they were born into it? That’s all that can and should be addressed by public policy.

[@n-tertainmentx-tended4760]

First-generation rich people are usually talented. Often their children are not.

[@jgdooley2003]

I have seen the imperative of need being a great driver in people developing talents and abilities. Often the general public perceive talents as being god-given where in reality they are the result of high levels of effort, intense learning and having good teachers and peers in the same field to guide you along the path to high performance and often a large slice of luck. The children of high performers may no need to be as talented as their parents because they do not have to be due to having a ready supply of money and assets to drift along.

[@rudiwiedemann8173]

Old saying: Grandpa was “thunder”, Pops was “wonder” and. The Kid is “plunder”.

[@SnorriTheLlama]

@@jgdooley2003 Most great people I’ve met in business have started from fairly low down, been exceptionally hungry/hard workers and willing to put in the time, and had excellent mentoring from others throughout their career. I’ve seen a good quote from some Roman or Greek saying that men aren’t born brave, but you can train them to be.

[@joeswanson733]

first gen makes the money, second gen maintains the money, third gen starts spending the money, 4th gen just splurges. we'll use bill gates for example since he is the one taht made the fortune. even though he grew up in a upper upper middle class family. so he's gen 1. his kids are gen 2 and they seem like they're smart or well educated because well how could you not be. so the rreal test would be what will happen to the gates third and 4th generation or beyond. i mean we have the rockefeller family where they have broken the rule of past 4th gen where the descendants of john d are still doing ok but that's only because their family trust was so huge that there's just no way for any of the John D to really end up destitute unless they became drug addicts or something.

[@James_Brown.]

​@@jgdooley2003 doesn’t talent mean the exact opposite? A highly talented individual is someone who can achieve high performance with little to no effort, compared to their peers. According to the dictionary, talent is defined as “a natural skill or ability to be good at something, especially without being taught”, "a natural skill or ability". For example, there are kids who score exceptionally well on IQ tests without preparation and outshine their peers with little to no effort.

[@telebiopic]

The axiom that ‘all humans are created equal’, is often wrongly attributed to enlightenment, it presupposes God and creation and nor does it say ‘remain equal’. The complete meaning in Christianity from where this philosophy stems from is … equal in the eyes of God, since your wealth and physical appeal have no bearing on God the creator. However sentient conscious organisms organize themselves in hierarchies whether you take for example birds, orcas, lions or ants. Any hierarchy is a surrogate for power distribution. The right optimization should be on justice & fairness.

[@saturationstation1446]

my eyes just rolled clear across the planet... yall better hope there isnt a god because i doubt it would be very forgiving for the self obsessed mass murder of life on earth that well off people cant seem to stop doing. trying to naturalize eurocentric monarchist behavior is what made academia accept a theory which only has evidence against it as dogmatic truth... according to darwin, an animal has a sudden beneficial mutation then impregnates the majority of females in its species... because thats statistically the only way his theory makes mathematical sense. other than that, with there being not a single example of adaptive mutation having ever happened in both the living and fossil record, is further proof against his theory. its a theory he created due to being a eugenicist thanks to that being the only acceptable state of mind in eurocentric culture. he viewed nature throught the lens of european monarchy... constantly trying to convince himself that his culture wasnt barbaric and stealing the value of other life forms iin ways that do not occur anywhere else in nature. that it was just the natural state of life on earth. there is literally no limit to the amount of delusion that well off eurocentrics are capable of utilizing to perpetually excuse their barbarism. they literally made it the basis of all their "science" lmfao

[@daemoncluster]

You do realize there are other religions and that Christianity is not the oldest religion, right?

[@telebiopic]

@@daemoncluster Are you always like this in your personal life? 🙄You do realize, that not proffering examples from other religions, doesn’t mean that I don’t know about them. And, you pointing that out doesn’t makes you a superior authority in comparative religion. Gosh the pretentiousness in the west is on the next level. P.S. - We are talking about western civic society and constitutions, so Christian religious ethics and doctrine are topical in this instance. If it was Chinese, I would have something to comment about Laozi!

[@daemoncluster]

@@telebiopic Western culture involves more than just Christianity. The thought that Christianity is the dominant religion is not accurate, especially considering Judaism, Catholicism, and other religions have their roles as well. I understand what the topic is and I understand what it entails. Going for and asserting factual information shouldn't be a supposition for character assassination.

[@simonhollis5256]

Catholicism is Christianity moron

[@davidgarridoecunha7102]

Many top executives in large, well-established companies-not startups or new businesses-often reach senior positions in their early to mid-thirties. Their LinkedIn profiles typically show a brief internship, followed by a few months in a junior role, three to five years as a director, and then a quick move to administrator or even higher roles. The standard progression-starting as a junior for 2-3 years, moving to senior, then team leader, and eventually director-seems bypassed. Many of these fast-track executives come from wealthy backgrounds, which opens doors that others may not have access to. For those who do follow the traditional hierarchy, it usually takes 20-30 years of hard work, yet they often earn just a fraction of what some of these accelerated-track executives make.

[@buenos4799]

Corporate accelerated leadership programs, with fake experience laundering using temporary leadership assignments in various projects. But wo gets into the program...

[@gilbpaul]

Living in the most unequal country in the world (Brazil), I can say that this toxic ideology of meritocracy is a scourge for my people, many fall for it. The ruling class here encourages this false discourse to the maximum. But more and more people are waking up to the fact that we will only get out of this situation when we unite as a working class and take power and the means of production. Workers of the world, unite! This channel is a gold mine! Congratulations on the excellent content and quality!

[@ATozz87]

Brazil is more socialist than most other countries, what you need is clearly more of the same.

[@Rak-Nay]

Please dont lie. In Brazil os teaching in schools against meritocracy is exactly the oposite, the ideology in Brazil is against meritocracy even the own president Lula talk bad about it.

[@sean8514]

You've got it! Working class unite! Absolutely brother. I'm here in the United States and we actually had a semblance of meritocracy for a short time here in the 50s, 60s, & 70s. By the time the mid 60s came along, the powerful & wealthy realized that the lower-middle class was achieving too much and started to "union bust", taking away the ability of the workers to unite and collectively bargain for better wages, better hours, and more workplace benefits like health insurance and paid time off. If you look into worker-union participation from the 40s through today in the US, you will see the degradation of the unions to just about nothing today. Finally workers are looking back at what they used to have, how well off comparatively they were(boomers) and able to build generational wealth, while today's working class can't even afford to get sick and miss a few days of work or they'll not be able to pay the rent because they're forced to live paycheck to paycheck with less than $400 in savings. The Working class is waking up to what the rich and powerful have done to keep them from achieving any semblance of comfort and happiness for themselves and their families. We're too poor to afford to have even 1 child these days. But we're starting to fight back Finally! It makes me happy to hear that the Working class is starting to Unite in Brazil as well! It's not just here in the US and thanks to the internet we can see what has happened to us, what they've done to us and we are really pissed off!

[@maraujo696]

Really so unions and syndicates should rule? Hum... that sounds a bit like a system once tried in Italy in the 30s and 40s...

[@gilbpaul]

@@maraujo696 Nice attempt at using the horseshoe theory. But no, we know better. If you want to compare the co-optation of unions and workers in fascist regimes like Mussolini's with the successful experiments under socialism, I ask you to go back to school.

[@note8898]

Such a great video on such an important topic! I don't leave comments often but want to leave words of encouragement given how underrated the channel is. Keep up the good work! Greetings from Poland!

[@TheMarketExit]

Thank you very much - I do appreciate that you write a comment even though you usually don't do that :) I hope you have a great day!

[@removechan10298]

and?

[@removechan10298]

@@TheMarketExit there seems to be part of the video that didn't upload: > really bad english "look at this pareto" and then > *nothing* where is the "and"?

[@richdespiseus6243]

If you own the system, you control the flow of money. A poor person with a billion dollar idea can be bought for a million or stopped completely.

[@Waterfront975]

If you look at people like B. Gates and E. Musk, that have become successful, and most, like them, have had rich parents that supported them. When you feel safe, you can risk more, and if you also can get a big loan from your parents, that also gives advantages. I don't complain too much, but what irritates me is when the same privileged people also try to make social upwards mobility harder, and the primary method used is to allow lots of immigrants to the country which makes the wages lower and makes upwards social mobility harder.

[@YoniBaruch-y3m]

When you feel safe you can risk more. Exactly why Universal Basic Income should just as reasonably be relabeled Universal Basic Seed Capital and become the pet project of the right. Oh and something else the right wing should love: with a bit of a UBI, minimum wage becomes unnecessary. Set it at the right amount, and the labor market can go truly free, paying workers exactly what it takes to make them work, all the way down to zero.

[@srelma]

​​@@YoniBaruch-y3mEr, the right is fighting against social mobility (as they are the people who would lose in a society with high social mobility at least in relative terms). So, why on earth they would support a policy that would increase social mobility?

[@leetster6303]

it goes both ways. sometimes, having nothing to lose is better than being safe. 99% of people stop trying when they feel safe as they have no need to continue. thats why only the other 1% have all the money. and before you mention inheritance, poor people are having kids too. the ratio stays the same and the money stays in the family. if i become rich, i’ll sure as hell make sure my kids get as much of my wealth as possible. (not before they learn how money works of course)

[@gharm9129]

@@srelma lmao you conveniently ignoring the left are the ones flooding your country with replacement migrants to suppress wages to? You leftoids really are dumb af still swallowing party line believing in lies. I could write out a book but you'll still swallow the party Kool-Aid.

[@doodlemecrzy8075]

Being born in the right place & time drastically affects one’s fortune & life path. Meritocracy works but it takes exceptional hard work, talent & luck to break through the class ceiling.

[@Mutantcy1992]

Yeah this is all true. Why is the solution to the fact that life is not fair to tear everything down?

[@zo2bv]

​@@Mutantcy1992 What does "tearing everything down" mean, and who's advocating that?

[@Mutantcy1992]

@@zo2bv Marxism is a critical theory. Critical theories only say what is wrong but do not offer a solution other than revolution with the promise that a glorious utopia will naturally spring up in the place of what was torn down. Feel free to learn more about marxism should you be interested.

[@zo2bv]

@@Mutantcy1992 no one mentioned Marxism until you just now. The OP comment you responded to didn't mention Marxism. Merely using the word "class" doesn't make an observation Marxist. Definition of social gradings (or class) is a useful tool which governments use to develop policy. And in common parlance, people use the phrase "middle class" all the time. It is not Marxist to recognise that society is deeply unfair and that a person's lot in life is largely determined by the circumstances they are born into, or to believe that government policy should seek to address the punishing inequality suffered by many as a consequence of arbitrary circumstances. There are many political ideologies which seek to achieve this within the framework of capitalism (e.g. social democracy, social liberalism), without the need to "tear everything down".

[@Mutantcy1992]

@@zo2bv this channel literally just talks about labor, class, and capitalism, if you want to put your head in the sand about it that's on you. Notice he made a diagram about class mobility based on surname, and while China was mentioned by Larsson, it doesn't show up on the diagram. Maybe that's because the mobility based on surname isn't very high there. China is a nominally communist country. Weird to exclude that one and include countries not verbally named on the diagram, don't you think? You're the same kind of person who thinks North Korea must be a democratic republic because the name says Democratic People's Republic of North Korea. So if this guy doesn't explicitly mention Marxism, he can't be a Marxist.

[@Itswat3vah]

People LOVE to complain about DEI hiring but they NEVER talk about the inefficiencies of nepotism

[@jasondashney]

That’s because one has been around as long as jobs have existed, and the other is a very new phenomenon that compounds the problem

[@Jesayou]

@@jasondashney does DEI really compound problems? or is it a narrative the right uses to prey upon a flawed subconscious of people who think people of different backgrounds are inherently not qualified. The incompetence I've faced in the work place is from brown nosers, liars and people who vastly overestimate their value and decisions can't admit faults etc etc never been because their gay or some other bs, but hey convenient boogey men don't require self reflection.

[@waleuska]

@@jasondashney DEI doesn't compounds anything. DEI is to force people to hire minorities when they are suitable for the job. People have bias that needs to be address.

[@kimmieutsunomiya1457]

@@jasondashneyno it’s because DEI helps “poor” people (who you should hate and malign) poor/different to white male heteronormativity = bad and nepotism (traditional rich white male heteronormativity) = good

[@DrDanQ92]

@@kimmieutsunomiya1457 No, it helps SOME poor people who happen to be of the right ethnicity or sexuality.

[@seuri678]

I could not have accomplished anything without my mother. Her nurturing and wisdom have shaped who I am. Of course, I am far better than my peers who lack the same support and guidance that she has given me.

[@gessie]

"I am better than others because mommy loves me". I hope there's a language barrier at play here because you give the impression of an arrogant mommy's boy - the worst kind.

[@advsreeharivs]

​@@gessie Seems like a chap who is grateful to his mother

[@PrinceoftheVioletFlame]

Sane I owe my mother everything.

[@seuri678]

@@gessie It’s true that English is not my first language. Without my mother’s support during crucial moments, I would have become mentally broken, which would have left me at the bottom of the social ladder. However, I am now self-sufficient and doing well. Love alone isn’t enough; it requires sufficient skills as well. This was essential in my past, and now I have overcome those challenges.

[@hectormata449]

@@seuri678 Where’s any praise for your daddy? Did you forget him, or did your mom make a poor choice of a husband?

[@cechago2544]

Here in Chile, since i was a child i heard adult people saying that " tienes que ser 'vio", which translate to "need to be alive" but more acurately means "you need to stay awake" or better... "KEEP BOTH EYES OPEN". Is really common here. sadly as it it, it is a call for pray on the weaker person for our own benefit. Also you hear "every day a dumb is born, and the one who finds him, can keep it" , meaning..." Look for people not awarr of the world, and take advantage!" As a child, I was disgusted by this way of living, because our ruling class scream this at the top of their lungs MERITOCRACY ... And i believe it 😅 but now, at my 33 years, is everyday more clear to me that the rich and the wealthy (and even the slightly whealthy) only became who are now, through theft (yes, legal theft). So that is very sad, and I often wonder if I ever wanna have a house or provide for a family, ill have to do the same :/ And yess, yess... I know. Dishonesty is not the only way, and I have parents to always teach me better... But worries me that they are an exception, and also are kind of resentful, and I get it. Its is dificult to go the "right way" when the lesser people go the easy way and end it up better... Is like I choose to be an ashole without nobody asking me to... Shit. Well, this is Chile. This is a country of thiefs, and maybe I am also one. Who knows, maybe in Europe and places like that the thing is actually different

[@gulaschnikov5335]

"maybe in Europe and places like that the thing is actually different" .. Well europe's wealth is based on theft. I totally get you. It is harder to live virtuous.

[@jonsapify]

only adding, "theft" or Random chance that is mistaken for hard work (i.e. the perception that one's own hard work is greater than work of the less deserving lower class )

[@olivasantonio8178]

Hola, @cechago254. En Hispanoamérica, en Europa y el resto del mundo es la misma mierda. No te dejes arrastrar por la marea y conserva tus valores. Saludos desde México. / It's the same crap everywhere, not just in Chile. Don't surrender your values to the avalanche of societal manure shove down your throat by the government and the elite. Greetings from México, where the 'dream' or elusive mirage is sold to us from Kindergarden to Uni.

[@Dapicomp]

that's really sad: ppl prey on the weak among themselves. here in China, the Confucious teaching was saying that everybody should do his part, be it high officials or farm hands, and the higher the position, the greater the responsibility. that's why we don't believe everybody needs to take part in politics, as is seen essential in a "democracy".

[@dimitristripakis7364]

If you want to become a CEO from zero, it's almost impossible. But if you want to become something out of nothing, it is certainly possible.

[@Mr.Proghead]

You can easily become a CEO from zero, just start your own company. Becoming a wealthy, successful CEO is another matter.

[@homergee3381]

We live in a time where a single example can be sold as the norm and the norm can be sold as no more than a single example.

[@srt11111]

probably the most underrated channel in YT... I wish there was a way to be an early investor for channels like these; just like in investment market.. production quality and depth are at level of "fineaus" or "cold fusion" level (if not better). superb work.

[@TheMarketExit]

That's extremely kind of you and inspires me to keep making videos. Thank you for taking the time to write such a kind comment!

[@wipwhopdipdhop3673]

Alain De Botton (British Philosopher): "Everyone agrees that meritocracy is a great thing and we should all try to make our society a meritocratic one. The problem is that if you really believe that a society where the ones that really deserve to the top get to the top, you also by implication and in a far more nasty way believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there. In other words, your position in life comes to seem not accidental but deserved. And that makes failure much more crushing." It's sickening, gives no mercy or virtue - the rich stay rich and get richer. The poor are drained by the real vampires of this world - the rich.

[@jon_nomad]

The thing is... the Western world do not practice meritocracy anymore although we think we are practicing meritocracy.

[@loganmedia1142]

What do you mean anymore? When was meritocracy practiced?

[@planesandbikes7353]

One hundred precent disagree. On a sliding scale of meritocratic characteristics of a nation, the Western world is not only the most meritocratic regions in existence, they are also the most meritocratic in their history and in human history. On a sliding scale, relative to other societies and across history, yes indeed social mobility is far more possible today than it was 50 or 100 years ago, and orders of magnitude more possible over centuries and millenia too. But we will always have some kind of social stratification, and with human nature determining our behaviour we can never achieve pure meritocracy. You will always have 'the poor' and 'the rich' even in communist societies this happens, and in nations which pursue more ardent socialism the overall prosperity (efficiency, productivity) declines impacting social mobility, and also the top-down central planning of such ardently socialist societies tends to maximize constraint of opportunity preventing the little guy from breaking into small business success.

[@Justin.Martyr]

*I Live DnTn in a City!!! Lots of Beggars!!! I say Aren't SeveraL HELP Programs????* *ALL I Ever Get, Hate Screech or at Best a Snotty WaLk Off!!!* *Sooo, I Know & I can Prove, that Street PeoPLe IS a GAME. Oct.19, 2024*

[@jasonfan54]

As always, these videos have an insane amount of production given how young the channel is - please keep these up!

[@TheMarketExit]

I'll keep it up, thanks for the kind words!

[@vincentglass2970]

Can't believe people are just realizing this

[@psikeyhackr6914]

Where is the mandatory accounting in the schools? This guy Adam Smith wrote this book, Wealth of Nations. It has been free in Project Gutenberg since 2001. Anybody can search it for anything they want to see what he said about it. Well he used the word 'education' Eighty Times and wrote “read, write and ACCOUNT” multiple times. And he used “Invisible Hand” so much it can be counted on One Finger. Double entry accounting is 700 years old. Couldn't the US have made accounting mandatory in the schools since Sputnik? Have Capitalist Economists been giving us the finger for decades? It is invisible, I cannot tell.

[@jgdooley2003]

My late father always regretted that schools did not make commerce subjects a part of the core curriculum and place more emphasis on them in the core mathematics curriculum. His opinion was that many pupils left school knowing more about Shakespear and History than knew about accounting, interest rates and terms and conditions pertaining to taxation and government regulations. He was in many ways right about this lack of emphasis in the education system. The interest in the monied and ruling class is for the ordinary people to be ignorant of such subjects and to be terrorised into paying and accepting high rates of interest on loans and rates of tax on economic activity.

[@psikeyhackr6914]

@@jgdooley2003 The Screwing of the Average Man (1974) by David Hapgood

[@Demopans5990]

Only as so much as it helps with college loans. Even then, only where schools are essentially bankrolled.

[@MsFallenPrime]

It's mostly common sense really. It doesn't take a genius to realise that if you spend everything, squander a bunch and forget about random subscriptions that it costs you. Nor ever invest or think of the future doesn't help much either.

[@jamesjasso6002]

I have an alternative education system; we always pursue entrepreneurial basics. Accounting is indispensable, much more important than many other vastly taught subjects.

[@ThatHabsburgMapGuy]

In 1944, the US passed the GI Bill, which granted free university education to the generation of men who were conscripted into the war. Of course, not everyone was equally able to attend universities: non-whites were functionally excluded from all but a few universities. The cost of entry when compared to today was also astonishingly low. It was easy then to earn enough working part time to support yourself through school, and perhaps even support a small family. I think the reason America sees itself as a meritocracy is because for a time, it really was. We forget though that this was entirely state-sponsored. The hundreds of thousands of men who received university education this way didn't work to earn it; they were forcibly conscripted and then as a reward, social mobility was literally handed to them. The US government put boots on an entire generation of men and then hoisted up the bootstraps.

[@notsocrates9529]

I am post 9/11 GI Bill, I disagree with you but I am so tired of it all so I won't elaborate. Our country is dead, DOA.

[@Dapicomp]

the US could hoist those ppl up partly because Europe was paying back the debt it owed to america during WW2, for sth like 60 years.

[@banne8834]

I dont think anyone has ever said we live in a meritocracy. Its capitalism.

[@Curious_Citizen0]

This is the quality youtube should strive for, quality of content, the topic and execution!! nice work mate

[@bacool]

This is the stuff I wish I was aware of before college in picking careers even though I went to a top state public university. Career choice and being aware of things like banking and law and consulting even as options frankly matters a lot. Else enjoy being middle class 👍🏼

[@TheMarketExit]

I completely agree. If you grow up in a community where essentially no one has gone to university, how are you supposed to even know that there is such a thing as the consultancy industry?

[@saturationstation1446]

very few people even have the long term consideration capacity to be picking careers before their late 20's. you change quite a lot age 20-30. there is no way to know what your final character will be capable of or interested in. you might become too ill to perform what your studied for. you might not agree with or enjoy it after maturing and learning more about the world and certain humans behaviors. in reality all college amounts to is extending childhood for well off people while the working class folks have to immediately go into making profits and maturing into adults by living within the real world aka the world that the other 99% of the human species who arent well off enough to have their costs of living covered for decades so they can spend all their time and energy doing whatever school things... i've only encountered a handful of people who actually came out of college more intelligent and morally sound than when they went in. turns lots of people into perpetually entitled narcissists because of not having to live in the real world during that vital time of adult character development.

[@SnorriTheLlama]

I believe the saying is you don’t know what you don’t know. It’s why people are way more likely to go into the same profession as their parents than a completely random one. Your parents have a lot of knowledge about their job, but little knowledge or experience of other jobs. Because of the family structure which is an essential part of life, this will always be a significant factor.

[@rickr530]

@@SnorriTheLlama I agree wholeheartedly. Different generations and different classes have different strategies for survival. Most of the advice my mother gave me about education, career, and finances was true for her, but not true for me. She did encourage me to make some different life decisions, but, having not taken that path herself, could not give more specific guidance than "don't do what I did." This is why you see persistence in society, which I think is orthogonal to the concept of meritocracy. I have managed to benefit from meritocracy but by a razor-thin margin I could have just as easily followed my parent's path instead.

[@MrJustonce123]

There are people with plumbing businesses that make more than consultants.

[@jimmonroe5801]

The term meritocracy began as satire. Who determines what constitutes merit, the ones in power. Thus someone with merit mirrors them.

[@stuartmccormick5372]

“The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly colored, and it's very loud, and it's fun for a while. Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, "Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, "Hey, don't worry; don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride." And we … kill those people. "Shut him up! I've got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real." It's just a ride. But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok … But it doesn't matter, because it's just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.” ― Bill Hicks

[@TheMarketExit]

Hey, thanks for sharing this quote. It does resonate with me a lot

[@mariamorgan3009]

That's the kind of world I want to live in. Why do they want to destroy us?

[@rudiwiedemann8173]

Together we can do it YOURSELF.

[@paladinsorcerer67]

Bill Hicks was truly funny, and truly smart. This quote is basically my worldview. Mr. Hicks is my favorite comedian. RIP.

[@heiskanbuscadordelaverdad8709]

I remember that as a kid I heard a person saying that meritocracy is a lie and I was like wait there are people who believe that we live in a meritocracy nobody can be that stupid I thought but I was wrong people can be really stupid

[@lorenrealname1326]

Yeah I didn't know it took so many numbers to prove the tip of the iceberg of how gullible people are, but I can't argue with the results. And half the people in the comments are still like "diabetics should make their own way!"

[@loganmedia1142]

There are the people who want to believe everyone has the same chances and they achieved what they have purely through working harder. Then there are people who want to believe they can rise above their circumstances because the belief gives them hope.

[@murk4552]

​@loganmedia1142 then there's privilege and having connections with I guarantee is 90% of everyone's successful industry stories

[@murk4552]

​I tagged you @@loganmedia1142

[@StrangeWorld11191]

Great video If one is surrounded by plumbers, farmers or lawyers there is a high likelihood he will pick a similar profession and lifestyle ...and you could come to the same conclusion. In most cases it is not about nepotism but rather a human tendency of being influenced or inspired by their surroundings instead of searching outside of the box in most developed countries lack of wealth is not really what holds us back in life, but the lack of culture & occupational direction just might and if one seeks power, it always comes with great responsibilities and risks

[@albeit1]

I love it when people say or imply “we haven’t achieved a worthwhile goal, so we must stop and pursue something that is far worse.”

[@user-nu8in3ey8c]

People naturally assist and give benefits to their friends and family, and most of us desperately try to leave something to our children, however small, so that they can have slightly more than we ourselves had. This is natural. Meritocracy is at work in the capitalist system when one company drives another out of business that is not offering as good as a product for as low of a price. However this system becomes broken when that competition no longer takes place. Within companies it is favoritism that rules, not limited to bosses favoring their relatives. Bosses pick favorites even when they have no relatives at the company.

[@loganmedia1142]

Company competition is not based on merit either. Product quality and price are just further myths.

[@betoferrera]

I worked at a film school in São Paulo, where the vast majority of students were middle class or wealthy because of the high cost of the course. As a result, these actors are the ones who will appear in TV soap operas and movies. How would a poor person have the same opportunity? They do not!

[@OneLine122]

I noticed the phenomenon on a psychological point of view. What happens is that in unequal places, those at the top will pay some people to promote the meritocracy and they themselves will claim to be self-made. This way people are simply shamed into not complaining about their relative poverty and accept whatever scraps are left. Not only that but the message is to not complain, but promote, then maybe someone will notice you and if your advertising works, you might just make it. Well, you see that a lot on youtube. Most creators promote meritocracy, because they are beggars and the rich patrons certainly won't help people that work against them or are a threat. It's like being knighted in the older days except the modern knight fights the peasants instead of foreign knights.

[@saturationstation1446]

you cant be self made and not eternally exist in an isolated vacuum.... there is a severe mental illness among well off eurocentrics that prevents them from having the mental capacity to admit other human beings are real. because if they do they have to acknowledge the mass murder thats happening in their name... and they know if the circumstances were switched they would be becoming terrorists to defend what they care about before they'd get on their knees and enthusiastically get murdered with labor induced starvation...

[@johnkeane1419]

In the UK and US, 'successful' people go to enormous lengths to pretend they're the boy or girl next door. Until the Internet, they could usually get away with it.

[@Peopleareweird20]

Its all b.s who cares in the end?? Just try to find some happiness in this messed up world we live in. Forget money wealth and fame you are chasing nothing.

[@loganmedia1142]

When we get down to a fundamental level no-one can be self-made. We're all born with traits and capabilities dictated by our genes which can then be tweaked by our environment. A key part of that environment is our home and the nature of that home depends on the genetics of our parents and their upbringing.

[@klb9672]

Yes but maybe you can't become the next elon musk but you can certainly become better than you currently are. It's very stupid to blame everything in thr circumstances. I did that for years and I regret bitterly. I know I can't get rich but I'm sure I can become financially independent so I can own my own car, have sufficient money for emergencies, have my own house and have a vacation or two. For most people that actually is possible and even if you don't achieve you definitely will be better off than just complaining about the system. Imagine if our ancestors did that during the hunt and gather age? They would have gone extinct.

[@jusu8961]

I dont understand how these have so few views. These really are amazing quality. Atleast having a big backlog of great videos like this shows people that come to look at your channel from a video that eventually does blow up that youre not a one trick pony.

[@sailor2507]

A commendable analysis with closer reference to aristocracy rather than meritocracy. Meritocracy as a noble goal to strive for, can never be reached, like an asymptotic curve. We should view it from a philosophical vantage point, in an Aristotelian analysis. As such it cannot be a lie; it is simply a level of social development that eludes us. The hurdles posed by nepotism and social systems of transferring wealth and power, does not mean that society should not strive towards meritocracy, admittedly somewhat of a utopian goal presently.

[@ordesolomons9545]

To add, on a granular level, the very common occurrence that the merit worthy actions of an individual goes unrecognised and unacknowledged by those around them by peers and those in authority.

[@peregrinecovington4138]

As you can see in this comment section, propaganda is extremely effective.

[@srelma]

The comment section seems to be full of comments praising the video. So, are you saying that it's propaganda that's in the video?

[@antifa_communist]

Are you saying this video is propaganda or meritocracy is propaganda

[@TrainerYB]

If china ccp can do it with 50 cent arny..... The propagandist get bunch shills to mske it look likw a bunch people supporting , but yea sure you can have some folks honestly support kom munism too....🤷

[@TrainerYB]

You are going to dangerous ground when ypu argue ability dont matter, easy to jump to kom munisn from there..... When you feel ability and ypu dont reward people with ability, development can dies just like tgat.... Pro woke video....i wonder who funding this propaganda ......👎🤦

[@TrainerYB]

If you pay attention , thus is a counter to elon musk s message for meritocracy.....👎

[@ptseti]

It never ceases to amaze me how researchers can come up with catchy terms and phrases, and even spotlight social ills and problems, yet they never seem to wield enough influence over our corrupt and incompetent politicians to actually solve the issues that have plagued humanity for ages. So, what’s the point of having researchers, economists, and experts if they can’t make a dent in the world’s inequality? As for the so-called elusive American Dream, I frankly don’t buy into that fantasy. Someone without a bed to sleep in can’t dream big and get rich. It’s the biggest lie society has swallowed and keeps drinking since capitalism reared its ugly head.

[@inwarsaw97]

I disagree with presenting meritocracy as a binary concept-either “a lie” or perfectly functional. We should aim to optimize meritocracy by creating environments where everyone can reach their full potential (which has improved over time). For example, many first- and second-generation immigrants in North America outperform their circumstances from their countries of origin. Additionally, the assumption that only "status" is inherited overlooks that abilities-like athleticism, math skills, or artistic talent-can also be passed down. Success often requires both these traits and an environment that fosters growth. Parents who have succeeded in a field can teach their children the necessary skills and behaviors. There’s also a cause-and-effect issue: societies with more inequality may also have more unequal distributions of ability. The key problem is that wealthy and powerful people will naturally seek to protect their status, limiting upward mobility. It’s crucial to continue seeking talent across the socioeconomic spectrum to counter this tendency. But if we abandon merit, talent and ability, then we are really left with a small elite deciding who gets access - and that sounds like a good way to foster nepobabies. This is basically what we saw in the communist block countries between 1950s and 1990. Finally, the religious introduction is a little simplistic. There is a strong case to be made that “all men being created equal” is rooted in Christian teaching. Regardless of whether you are religious, or atheist, this influence should be acknowledged.

[@WhatDoesEvilMean]

Literally every single person I know grew up poor. And every single one of those people are now upper middle class, including myself. All different colors, different genders. We’ve known each other our entire lives, have all different levels of education and work in entirely different industries. A couple of my friends are even rich. None of us helped one another to get any of the positions we have. The SINGULAR consistent is that we’re all authentic and honest. That’s it.

[@gianfrancobardiaparicio721]

Great video, and awesome production quality! Very interesting about the paradox of inequality, I was born and raised in Guatemala, then was lucky enough to save money and be able to study in France and now in Denmark, so basically I have moved in societies from the most unequal end to the most equal end of the spectrum. Anecdotally, I think a lot of the people I have met that believe in the meritocratic values of their societies is that it's most likely a psychological defense mechanism, because people rarely like to think of themselves in a negative way (i.e. what if my comfy situation comes down to >80% luck and I'm not that special ?), so they reinforce the belief that they deserve their outcome in almost a fanatical way.

[@TheMarketExit]

Thanks! I believe that you are completely right. Your background and story make me really curious to know more about how it is to have lived in countries on such polar opposite sides of the spectrum. If you want to share a bit more about your experiences, I'd love to hear it!

[@gianfrancobardiaparicio721]

@@TheMarketExit hey yeah of course I can try to answer ^^

[@saturationstation1446]

its a defense mechanism because if you are honest about the situation, it means every eurocentric country is breaking geneva convention rules and committing mass genocide against everyone outside of europe. dont want to have to realize that mass murder through labor induced starvation has taken the lives of 99% of the human species in the past several hunderd years. because then you have to admit to being a psychotic monster for tolerating and enabling it... but if you think dying from exhaustion due to having to do physical labor for little to no compensation is anything besides murder, you've already identified that you dont have the mental or moral capaciity to humanize real human beings and only consider the psychotic self obsessed "i raised and taught myself everything and exist in a vacuum so im self made and owe nothing to no one" as acceptable forms of human beings...

[@klankungen7794]

My mom told me about when she was young and the politicians set the sallary for them self to be equal to the sallary of other state workers such as teachers. Back then she would have the same salary as politicians because they were equally important. Today she earns way less than a politician even though she is a teacher. To me social mobility should not be that you succeed in becoming a movie star. It is that you should have equal oportunity to become a highly educayed individual. I have always critiziced some work getting so much, like movie stars or rock stars.

[@jgdooley2003]

Such sectors as entertainment and sport have countless thousands of specialist technicians and support workers on relatively modest incomes to enable the stars to do their work. The star system was a by-product of similar systems that existed in music and theater for centuries. Movie studios adopted the system to market their films to the general public as a mark of how good a film was. It backfired on the studios in as much that the stars could demand and get high rates of pay and better terms than lessser known contributors to the output. Director and producers also got in on the act and a cult of personality became the norm in the entertainment industry. The other workers in the industry do not get high salaries and often struggle to survive between periods of work. There is very low stability in the sector compared to other more mundane sectors in society.

[@jamesmedina2062]

Aggression and war have dominated cutting edge tech for centuries and when you look at ferocious creatures you can see why that competition starts millions of years back between all animals as well. I bring this up because competition can be a bad thing especially to the planet but it is across the animal kingdom. The worst humans kill the best and docile ones at times. In my country some real "animals" are paid millions to play sports while teachers are not.

[@srelma]

Which country you're talking about? I'd be highly sceptical that what your mom told you was ever true anywhere. And personally, I don't even want it to be true. I want politics to attract the best talent not just average as the impact the politicians have on our lives is so huge. I don't want the political jobs to be filled by people, who hunger for power and can get their living in some other means (read: corruption) than their state salary while all the talented people wanting to do good for the world go to some other better paying jobs.

[@klankungen7794]

@@srelma Sweden. It was other times when people found honor to be important. It was also much less corrupt back then than it is today and people became politicians to do good, not to get rich. Today politicians have so high pay and have ways to use their political contacts to get corupted after their job as a politician that corruption has risen a lot so even though I agree with what you say the truth is the oposite here compared to what you say. The only political party with little to no corruption in Sweden has set their sallary to about Sweden's median sallary for every one in the party. Might be why socialism is rather popular here compared to most places in the west.

[@blueodum]

@@jgdooley2003 It was similar in professional sports in North America for a long time. The average major league baseball player wasn't payed very much more than the worker who came and watched him play. The star players did earn more, but the multiples were typically 5 to 10x at most. Then the players organized in unions and their salaries took off. It turned out that the owners had been suppressing player salaries for decades, thereby getting a massive share of the revenue pie. TV transformed pro sports and massively increased revenue - and because the players had strong unions to fight for their share, their salaries have skyrocketed.

[@AaronMichaelLong]

"The game is rigged, because everyone can't win."

[@Psychojogia]

Jesus, the editing on this video is just pure fire, phenomenal work guys :)

[@JaeohnEspheras]

Meritocracy has always been influenced by networking skills. I am certain everyone does it without even realizing it. It’s human nature. For instance, if you need someone to mow your lawn, you're likely to call the neighborhood kid who does it for others, especially if he’s your own son. Let’s be honest: did you choose him based on skill or convenience? If the cost were similar, you might even pay your son more as encouragement. This raises the question: is this meritocracy or nepotism? While ability plays a role in meritocratic systems, networking often trumps skill when it comes to real-world decisions. Familiarity and personal relationships can overshadow merit, revealing that meritocracy may be more about who you know than what you can do. Like it or not, that is our nature.

[@SangsungMeansToCome]

You make the case that meritocracy still exists in the form of "networking skills". Haven't you watched the video? It's never skill, it's always luck.

[@JaeohnEspheras]

@@SangsungMeansToCome Luck is a component for sure. Though at times it requires skills to take advantage of that luck. Life isn't fair, however it doesn't mean you won't have opportunities. Those opportunities may vary depending on your personal and social circumstances, but it still requires abilities to function within those condition and improve. Your luck may offer an opportunity for a demand, and supply trade. How you about turning into profit relies on your skills, luck and resilience. You may still even fail if you had all the stars aligned, like earthquake or war. Do you really want to plan your life around those metric. Lucks helps, but it is hardly the only factor. Skills can also enhance your luck and frequency of opportunity. It doesn't mean a youtube makes opiniated a video that you should take it for gravy.

[@loganmedia1142]

But where does skill come from? Does everyone have an equal opportunity to develop any skill?

[@loganmedia1142]

@@JaeohnEspheras You're basically acknowledging that a meritocracy is impossible. Having the genetics to be able to develop any particular skill and the opportunity to do so are also simply down to luck.

[@JaeohnEspheras]

@@loganmedia1142 err. I said lucks plays a role, what you do with it is up to you. How deal with your own circumstances influence the outcome. The amount of influence is debatable. Take responsibility for your own life, do not defeated because you been delt a bad hand. If you grow up in a bad neighborhood, do you do drugs because of your luck? Or because of your choice? . Do you skip school because of luck or because your choice? Are unable to become skillful at job because you didn't attend training due to choice or luck? You want a good wife in your life? But you spend all your days avoiding interacting with them. Luck or choice? Yes you might be uglh af makes it more challending to meet one, but doing nothing will garantee you won't have one. Luck, is a constant factor, but how comport yourself and in what situation you put yourself in is your choice. Those also influence your choice.

[@DeenanTheKemon1]

I grew up dirt poor as a child. No matter how hard I try, I remain dirt poor as an adult. I have never been anything but taken advantage of at work, my entire life. I've never met a single business owner who wasn't devilishly greedy behind closed doors. I'm sick of this system. I'm sick of being trapped in a rich ski town where every other vehicle is a Tesla or New BMW, while I can barely afford food to eat. Im ready to snap. And I am not Joking.

[@klb9672]

And the type of job you worked hard and your ability on it? What about your other life decisions? Do you educate yourself significantly? Have you created good relationships? Do you keep your physical and mental health, healthy? Do you reflect on your behaviour? What's your intelligence level? How good are you at social interactions? Have you created plans on how to spend your day,weekends, month etc? If most of these are no or negative than you can't become wealthy with just hard work. Hard work is just part of the puzzle.

[@thomashind4835]

Unfortunately that’s been my experience with most business owners too. Really sad to see

[@carlgauss1702]

I wish you luck brother.

[@thescholarsjourney661]

This video is very well done but PLEASE turn down the volume of the sound effects, they actively hurt my ears and make it hard to hear what's being said

[@kevinjohn8365]

Wow, production levels are off the chart . Keep up the great work.

[@TheMarketExit]

I will indeed keep it up, thank you for the kind comment!

[@stevereber3358]

I have moved around a lot in the eastern half of the US, and I would estimate that 35% of promotions are via nepotism, 30% via friendship/ sucking up (2 different jobs an incompetent worker spent 6 hours a day sitting in his bosses office kissing A$$) before promotion. 15% actual/threatened blackmail (Son't piss off the one guy who saw you do the thing) Maybe 20% have anything to do with competence (I worked for a tech company where there were NO female managers (time magazine) and within a year all the managers wives and girlfriends were made managers.

[@seebarry4068]

1:05 US supreme court says hold my beer.

[@barbh1]

High lead has been found in Oakland schools water. Governor says we don't have the money to fix it.

[@murk4552]

Lead poisoning and other leaks of dangerous substances, viruses conveniently happen in only low income areas. Shocking? Not really, when those who can afford to make sure these things don't happen with the right science and facilities.

[@aubreyj.tennant1123]

Give the Gov a break, they needed those funds to siphon into the Uni they want their child to grad from!

[@6kle82]

People tend to overly simplify things. They love to agree on some single factor being the one that decides all. Most hate to think that anything is complicated because then they have trouble understanding it. That is why a caption like in this video is so common in youtube, it's what people like to see. Naturally meritocracy is not a 100 % lie. Everyone knows countless examples where hard work combined with some talent and maybe a bit of luck worked for someone. At the same time we also know people who worked like crazy and got nowhere. There is no guarantee that life will grant you rewards if you work hard. But the chance is there. If you don't work hard the chance for success is still there but it's significantly reduced. There are a lot of factors. There's natural talent (genetics), work motivation, how you are raised, the country or area you live in. Plus a lot of other factors. You can't say one factor is enough for success or that one of them (merit) is a complete lie.

[@Skank_and_Gutterboy]

I agree, there's some of both going on, it's not that black and white. For everybody going on about what a f**ked-up miserable country we live in, go live anywhere else for awhile. I visited 14 countries across Europe, Southwest Asia, and in the Pacific-rim in the Navy and my engineering career. Hands-down USA beats them all and it's always a god-send to get back.

[@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115]

The psichos made their way to the top, and closed the gates.

[@oliveirlegume3725]

I fully agree as a physicist. I could do the physics I love during 3 years only. First my thesis advisor blocked me of any publication during my thesis. Then I got invited at Harvard and in 3 years I published 38 highest level papiers including 8 Phys Rev Letts that is a journal of New concepts only. Then I had to return to Switzerland where my former professor blocked me and I had to reconvert. Hé dis the same to his associate professor who went away.

[@oliveirlegume3725]

Is true my parents were artists with very low income

[@Ygnez]

Wait, isent this evidence that meritocracy does work? In the long-run you won, right?

[@oliveirlegume3725]

@@Ygnez no they forced me to quit. I realized I had to change orientation.

[@Ygnez]

@@oliveirlegume3725 ah okay. But does this mean meritocracy doesnt work, or does this mean that there is a shitty professor at this institution?

[@oliveirlegume3725]

@@Ygnez well did not work for me. That professor was too short I think but still wanted to be above others in his field And I have many friends in Europe who expérienced similar

[@XOPOIIIO]

Inequality is a good thing, it don't need to be justified. For example if all people will get two times richer, everybody benefits, but inequality will increase too.

[@PetterLarsson-w3o]

No, in your example it stays the same.

[@XOPOIIIO]

​@@PetterLarsson-w3o No it's not, think better. If one have a thousand dollars, and his neighbor a million, there's $999,000 difference. But if one gets 2 thousands, and his neighbor 2 million, you get $1,998,000 difference.

[@Here4TheHeckOfIt]

Meritocracy makes very false and unrealistic assumptions about opportunities and effort. It's an ideology and nothing more.

[@Joeyjojoshabbadoo]

Agreed. It's a racket is what it is. It's almost entirely built on plodding and tedious, self-reinforcing academic achievement, and essentially nothing in the way of particular, necessary expertise requiring extensive classroom tutelage. And the big rewards largely consist of upper-tier white-collar employment almost none of which actually requires college education. I'm not talking about doctors or engineers. Just business and administrative types. Even lawyers used to simply apprentice in a law office with no degree required. And quite predictably, all such employment is now totally walled off to the non-credentialed, even at the lowest tiers of the PMC class. And when I say credentials I mean university diplomas, not a journeyman plumbers' license which would actually mean something in terms of useful, proven proficiency. You can't even be a secretary in some places without a masters. Obama couldn't be any more the perfect child of the meritocracy. Very much middle class, but went to a fancy private HS. Seems like a genial enough guy, a natural schmoozer, manifestly of rather middling intellect. But a diligent student, put in the hours at the library, is willing to grind when he needs to grind even if he has to dig pretty deep if he ever needs that real intellectual horsepower. And that's pretty much all it is. Start piling up those degrees, the more prestigious the better, and then let 'the meritocracy' carry you forward....

[@Here4TheHeckOfIt]

​@@Joeyjojoshabbadoo The point I'm making is meritocracy supposedly means hard work leads to success. So, if this isn't necessarily true, we should just get rid of the term. We need accurate terms to describe reality.

[@Joeyjojoshabbadoo]

@@Here4TheHeckOfIt Umm, yeah. I guess I just amplified and expanded on your original, more terse observation. But heck yeah, let's get rid of the term. It's misleading!

[@srelma]

​@@Here4TheHeckOfItno meritocracy doesn't mean that only the effort counts. It means that talent/skill and effort that constitute your merit counts. You may argue that it should be only the effort that counts (and I may even agree with you) but that is not what meritocracy means.

[@Here4TheHeckOfIt]

​@@srelma Like many words, you can argue about its true meaning all day long. Once upon a time, meritocracy = the American dream. Until you find out that the dream really is closed off for many people. Between people's biases, prejudices, all of the gatekeepers and the extreme desire for conformity that seems to be all the rage, there isn't a chance in hell for some people. But I'm not going to pop your bubble. You can believe whatever shiny concept you wish.

[@RobertLesac]

Excellent choice of topic and excellent execution! Subscribed and looking forward more such content!

[@TheMarketExit]

Thanks and welcome. More to come!

[@udayshome1793]

And yet there's thousands of examples of 'shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations'. Researchers find patterns they look for.

[@lionardo]

One cannot make everyone equally rich but one can make everyone equally poor. No system will ever be fair.

[@mariusg8824]

There are plenty of ideas that would at least limit inequality to a certain extend: tax high inheritances a lot more, tax capital sufficiently, force transparency over incomes and major money flows, strengthen employee rights...

[@jamesmillar5951]

This is defeatist bullshit. We can aim for a more fair system and force it in that direction over time. Just giving up and letting the rich steal all the resources is not the answer.

[@ATozz87]

@@mariusg8824 what are the best counterarguments to those ideas?

[@mariusg8824]

@@ATozz87 I think the most profound argument is: what if the rich leave? What if they take their money elsewhere? Even if they are harmful in the long run, what happens in the short run? It's like getting away from heroin: definitely a good goal, but if you go cold turkey, it can kill you before it gets better.

[@deserticus18]

In order to climb the "success ladder" , lack of scruples is the main condition to achieve certain progress , the less scruples you have the more you climb, of course having a priviliged start point helps into the amount of "success ". So whatever you born poor or rich, the less scruples the more you'll climb

[@WONMARK]

I think what the most important question at this point would be "How do we as a society enable everyone to achieve the most out of their lives?"

[@spacechemsol4288]

A phrase poor people are (deservedly)poor because they are not as talented is very interesting, when one looks at the etymology of talent, which in greek was related to wealth/money and not skill. So it becomes somewhat of a tautology, poor people are (deservedly) poor because they have no money ...

[@rickr530]

The English word "talent" supposedly comes from the Greek word "talanton" which I'm told refers to a scale, something that is measured, or something that is weighed or balanced. A talent can refer to a unit of weight, and by proxy a unit of money since an amount of precious metal like gold or silver equal to 1 talent can be weighed on a scale. I think saying a person has talent doesn't necessarily mean more wealth than another, just more of something in the abstract.

[@loganmedia1142]

Even if it meant skill the ability and opportunity to learn any particular skill is a genetic lottery. Someone doesn't deserve to have almost nothing just because of that. Besides that the value we attach to various jobs is very skewed and not at all related to their difficulty or importance.

[@mktgsifu]

You can't discuss the idea of Meritocracy without discussing the history of how America was founded (Genocide of the Indigenous Natives) & built (Forced labor from enslaved Black Africans).

[@srelma]

Why would you need to discuss American history if you want to discuss, say, meritocracy in Sweden? Just because there is one country that has a dark history doesn't mean that you can't discuss meritocracy in the context of countries that didn't.

[@LearningTheStixx]

We are created equal, but that doesn't translate to people having the right to other people's hard earned money.

[@Thefamilychannel723]

You are making a case for reparations for slavery and colonialism.

[@SheepWaveMeByeBye]

Those money would come from the poor europeans. Do you really think you can fleece the global elite? The elite would be very happy to take money from the poor europeans, pocket most of it themselves and give you a tiny sum.

[@keypawn3024]

It's not "hard work" that makes you wealthy, it's PRODUCTION. Hard work helps production, but it's not necessary. For example, a lazy-but-talented salesman can make loads of money because his talent enables him to sell more in a day than others can sell in a week. With a 7x production he will eventually make 7x more money. The ability to produce is written into the genetic code like any other ability, which is why wealth can never be equal. No human ability is equally distributed.

[@infobahnuser9450]

in other words, work smarter.

[@LearningTheStixx]

When you meet people who treats everyone the same regardless of race, gender, social status, or financial wealth. That is someone who gets that everyone is equal. It doesn't mean that you now have the right to my money.

[@tictoc5443]

IMO life will never be fair..ever

[@amperestream2216]

in this life nothing is perfect don't let that discouraged you from improving

[@tictoc5443]

@@amperestream2216 agreed

[@SickegalAlien]

Life doesn't have to be fair But you can be fair to the people who suffer from it "Life" isn't being tested. You are.

[@mpumelelobeyers957]

Hence why Anti-natalist is morally right path

[@OfAngelsAndAnarchist]

@@SickegalAlienwe are not being tested. Fair is a social construct, not an objective reality. You could just as easily say, “everyone has exactly the same odds of being born into a wealthy family” or spin it any way you want It’s pointless debating about what is and what isn’t fair

[@enriquecabrera2137]

"if good thing real, why bad thing happen?"

[@redgrant4897]

A 4 year degree supposedly was the thing needed to get a good job and create social mobility. Now - with all the student loan debt - all it does is move you from poor to extremely poor. The only people who make a 4 year degree work these days are Ivy League graduates and they were the rich kids to begin with.

[@SattickDas2001]

Fact is : All people may be born equal ( except people born with disabilities, they are disadvantaged at birth), but everyone doesn't remain equal by the time they are grown enough to have their own autonomy and enterprise.

[@loganmedia1142]

People aren't born equal though. Even if exclude disabilities we're not equal at birth.