The Pros and Cons of Meritocracy

Does meritocracy really serve society?

The conventional wisdom is that the best and most intelligent people are taken aside and kept together so that they can be given the best education, resources and tools to further society. They cross pollinate amongst themselves and grow even more intelligent and wiser. They understand and appreciate the systems, are able to design solutions and provide a fair and just administration.

But the argument against meritocracy, based on empirical sociological evidence, is that meritocracy creates homogeneity. This homogeneity often leads to uni-dimensional thinking. Highly intelligent people start thinking in the same way - thus if one person is stuck for answers, everybody gets stuck. The problem becomes unsolvable. Anyone coming out with a radically new idea will automatically be deemed as "nonsensical" or "mad" or simply "dreamer".

Where this argument makes most impact is in selection of students for an educational program - take the best people and put them together or get diversity?

Martin Reuf, a Princeton sociologist, did this interesting research on over 600 entrepreneurs. The main point that he makes is:

Business people with entropic networks were three times more innovative than people with predictable networks. Because they interacted with lots of different folks, they were exposed to a much wider range of ideas and “non-redundant information”. Instead of getting stuck in the rut of conformity – thinking the same tired thoughts as everyone else – they were able to invent startling new concepts.

 Jonah Lehrer in Wired is troubled:

There is something unsettling about Ruef’s data. We think of entrepreneurs, after all, as individuals. If someone has a brilliant idea for a new company, we assume that they are inherently more creative than the rest of us. This is why we idolize people like Bill Gates and Richard Branson and Oprah Winfrey. It’s also why we invest in the meritocracy: We believe that we can identify talent in isolation. But Ruef’s analysis suggests that this focus on the singular misses the real story of entrepreneurship. Unless we take our social circle into account – that collection of weak ties and remote acquaintances who feed us unfamiliar facts - we’re not going to really understand the nature of achievement. Behind every successful entrepreneur is a vast network.

In a way, strangers represent the unknown. Meeting strangers is an opportunity to widen your own view of the world. If you restrict yourself and stay among people of your own "interests", you will just end up being a dogmatic network spouting the same rubbish all the time.

Welcome to Circles & Squares

In the beginning, Mumbai was a set of islands with largely fishermen and a few ports for trading ships to halt for rest and supplies. As traffic on the western coast increased - both in terms of volume and in terms of the multinational stakeholders - the benefits of the natural harbour that Mumbai offered were appreciated. This triggered development of trading activity - both physical structures like warehouses and factories for assembling goods and service hubs involving agents, traders, logistics providers, etc. The wealth generated was invested into housing, recreational structures and newer economic ventures like textiles. Land was reclaimed from the sea and the islands were fused into a single land mass. Populations kept rising. The markets spawned the rise of banking and financial services, stock markets, commodities trading, etc. Each of these entities brought in more and more people from different parts of the country. Savvy businessmen with surplus funds started investing in films. The elite patronised cricket clubs and gymkhanas. Culture, sports, wada pavs, temples, mosques, churches, malls, bowling alleys, etc all happened. The city started bursting on its seams every year - the trains became more and more crowded; the roads more and more jammed; the houses more and more scarce and expensive; the air more and more dirty. It continues even today.

A complex evolving (or devolving?) human system that originated from a few islands. Even today, Mumbai is still evolving, still emerging. The city stretches out northwards to Surat, eastwards to Nashik, southwards to Pune. Like this societies around the world are in constant transition.

There are a plethora of sciences which study human phenomena. There is surfeit of data, research, observations, viewpoints, insights, comments, stories, narratives that document human systems in transition.

This blog adds to the clutter. I make no claims that I will provide perspectives that cut through everything. It is rather a journal of my own growth and a metric of success would be writing posts contradicting myself (or points I may have made in earlier posts). If that happens, I shall consider myself has having moved ahead in life.

To know a bit of my background, here. I also do armchair commentary on life universe and everything. Plus I tramp around