Is a meritocracy the best society?

I always thought it was a nobrainer than a meritocracy was hands down the best kind of society to live in.  People who are the best at things should make it to the top.  People who are lucky enough to be born into a family or group that did well in the past should have to compete equally with everyone who wasn't.  What could be wrong with that?

Well, an intriguing blog post by Patricia Kaszynska as a guest blogger for Matthew Taylor has me thinking again. I still think it is the best model in general, but perhaps it needs a few more tweaks than I ever could have imagined.

Here are the caveats she brings up:

1.  If you are at the top because you are the best, and the people around you are also at the top because they are the best, what does that do to your attitude towards everyone else?  In plutarchies, there was usually a paternalistic attitude - they took care of the masses as an obligation for their status.  If not for the masses, there wouldn't be a plutarchy.  But in a meritocracy, perhaps they would become morally indifferent to the masses.  They get what they deserve.  We see some of that attitude among our politicians these days.

2.  What if the most talented people marry the other most talented people?  Would evolution start down two separate paths?  Would the talented get better and the untalented by stuck at the bottom?  I'm not sure, but it certainly is not impossible.

3.  Could we get a societal Peter Principle?  Talented people would get promoted until they finally hit a position that is a little past their ability and they weren't so talented any more.  Then they would stop there. 

I don't know if any of this is relevant.  But it is food for thought.

Free Speech and Political Ads

I was listening to an old NPR podcast (well, a month old) on 3^rd party political ads.  For example, the SuperPacs (501(c)4s) that don’t have to disclose donors and the 527 organizations that do.  The show had a three person panel that focused more on the honesty and legitimacy (or lack thereof) than the politics.  

 One person said that 3^rd party ads were usually outright lies and hiding behind the anonymity.  One said that they were partially lies and varied depending on the ad and the group behind it.  The most generous panelist said that these ads were mostly based on truth, but were deceptive in the way they presented it – so the net effect may present a skewed version of reality to a less informed viewer.  The result is mostly the same.  Wealthy people and groups leverage their financial resources to confuse the issues in ways candidates and political parties can’t get away with.

Hey nothing wrong with that right?  This is America!  Freedom of Speech!!!  Yeah !!

Brand Image and Freedom to do Business

The Right to Repair bill in Massachusetts demonstrates a few interesting business phenomena.  The ability of companies to engage in particular practices and maintain their brand varies widely.  The automakers are not doing anything that Apple doesn’t also do.  But the result is different. 

For anyone not familiar with the bill, here is some background.  From way back when, cars were simple enough machines that many car owners could do their own maintenance.  For anyone who didn’t want to, there was some auto repair shop in town that would be happy to do it for you.  Car dealers could do it too, but usually for a higher price.

Over time, the market for cars became really price competitive.  Dealers had such low margins on selling cars that they were forced to shift their profit model to add-on services like maintenance.  This created a problem.  If they charged higher prices for maintenance, owners could simply take the car down the street to the local repair shop.  But if not, they couldn’t afford to stay in business selling cars.

More time has now passed and the industry has continued to evolve.  Most cars now are based on computer platforms.  Maintenance has become as much an exercise in IT as it is in mechanics.  Doing maintenance requires a significant investment in computer technology and training.  Only economies of scale justify this investment so the owner is out of the maintenance picture.  It is just the dealer and the local repair shop who remain.  

One last step. The automakers created a technology lock that prevents local repair shops from getting access to the computer code in the car.  These shops can’t do the maintenance and now car owners have to bring the car to the dealer to get maintenance.  No more competition and dealers can charge higher prices.

Now for the Apple side of the story.  If you are the owner of something, regardless of the IP, you have the right to tinker with it.  Some technology vendors get around this by licensing a product to you under certain contractual conditions rather than selling it to you.  Software is a domain where this is common – hence the pages-long end user license agreements that come with software.  Same result as with the automakers.  You need to bring your iPhone to Apple to get it fixed.  You may remember the old practice of “bricking” your phone, which was when Apple would wirelessly find out the phone was hacked and would send an update to the iOS that would make the phone inoperable.

Which takes us to the Right to Repair bill.  The monopoly practices and prices for auto maintenance got the public really angry.  They collected the signatures for a referendum that will require automakers to unlock the car’s computer – allowing local repair shops back into the market.  We never did this with the iPod/iPhone/ iPad (even though it is largely the same system) in part because we have a much more favorable opinion of Apple than we do the local car dealer.  The car dealers and the personal electronics makers did virtually the same thing, but there was public outcry only on one of them.    

Sol Erdman and Lawrence Susskind had a great post  in the Harvard Business Review blog last week.  Their topic was about how to solve a problem that is destroying our political system and as a result our economy/environment/social safety net/insert your priority here.

The problem is that we have a system that rewards short term (the current election cycle) behavior even though we have long term challenges.  As a result, our politicians pass laws that look good in the short term but can have really negative outcomes in the long term.  We shower people with benefits and pass the bill on to our kids and grandkids.

So here is the three step process that they discuss (based on this book)

1.       Each camp (and for most domains there are many) is represented by someone they trust.

2.       All relevant camps are represented.

3.       No camp has enough power to make headway on its own.

This means that each camp has to negotiate, even to get their short term solution.  But since they have to negotiate, they can’t pursue the short term solution that makes them look good and the other camps look bad.  They have to compromise.  And because it was a trusted representative, their constituency would trust they got a decent deal.

I think this has a lot of promise except for one thing.  We learned after Simpson-Bowles that unless the group has some kind of authority, the short term thinkers will simply ignore the plan they come up with, paying it some lip service and moving on.  We need it to have teeth also.  Kind of like the sequestration situation we are in now with the budget.  You can bet your retirement that the pols will come up with something before year’s end.  Had we done this with Simpson-Bowles, we would have a deficit reduction plan already passed into law. 

Of course, the pols can always turn tail and repeal the plan later.  But that takes a majority and is subject to filibuster in the opposite direction.  So we are more likely to keep the plan.

finding a middle path and muddling through

I never put Jon Meacham on my list of thought leaders, and this morning I am questioning why I never thought of him this way.  I always respect the modest wisdom and sharp insight of his editorials.  His commentary in the July 30 issue of Time is no different; if anything even more so because it focused on a very challenging subject. 

The explicit topic is the Episcopal Church’s decision to allow each priest and parish to decide for itself whether to bless same sex unions.  He does a great job talking about why this middle path is a brilliant policy for the current political and social environment.  He recommends at the conclusion that the country can use this same approach to deal with some of the complex issues we are facing. 

Before I go further, let me preface with a few thoughts to frame my take on his article and the topic in general.  He is talking specifically about a situation where different people hold different values and have the right to do so.  When the government is dealing with same sex issues, this is not necessarily the case.  Protecting minority rights is one of the most important values of a modern government.  Full disclosure – I am a strong proponent of full equal rights (or rather full government blindness) for same sex versus opposite sex committed relationships.  But for a religious denomination, this is not the case.  And even for government there are some areas where a minority view does not necessarily warrant full protection – take for example an economic or environmental viewpoint. 

So in these cases, Meacham talks about the need for finding a middle path.  He quotes Bagehot’s quote about the British need for an “enduring effort to muddle through” when navigating the too-much-autocracy of a strong king and the too-much-anarchy of a strong Parliament.  In the case of the Episcopal Church, there are many members who belief in the faith and are against the Church blessing same sex unions.  There are also many who are equally strong believers and who are for blessing these unions.  Any absolute edict would alienate a large proportion of members in a church that has shrunk from 3.3 members to 1.9 million members in the past 40 years as it is. 

This kind of solutions works in this case because the passion of religion is mostly local.  If your parish is aligned with your own beliefs, then what the national organization is doing is largely irrelevant.  It would be about the same thing as if your parish broke away and started its own denomination.  Still, there would be this national organization doing something else. 

But this solution wouldn’t work with health care for example because it is a national market.  It is too easy to drive across state lines to visit a hospital.  Or buy an automatic weapon.  These are one-time events rather than every Sunday morning.  But that doesn’t mean we can’t find a middle path solution.

Can the US as a whole learn to compromise?  Do we have policy wonks smart enough to develop the middle path solutions, politicians brave enough to vote for them, and a populace open-minded enough to vote the politicians into office?

Why moderate parties never last

Moderate third parties can never work because they don’t elicit the passion that is needed for donations of time, money, op-eds, social networking salons, etc.  I guess the problem is that there is an inverse relationship between being passionate and being right. 

Although it is sad, there is actually a scientific explanation for that.  Extreme views are extreme because they don’t make tradeoffs.  You take just one dimension, decide which side you want to be on, and then don’t make any adjustments for mediating dimensions like technical feasibility or cost.  Or (perish the thought!) people who are on the other side.  And because you are locked and loaded on a single dimension, it is very easy to explain, talk about, see examples of where it is being followed or not followed, etc.  Simple. 

But as with most things in our complicated work, no important issues are simple.  There are always nuances.  But nuance is harder to explain, talk about, or recognize when you see it.  These views don’t fit on a picket sign.  They don’t make very good 5-word sound bites or slogans.  Proponents can’t follow a prophet into the promised land.

And so here we are.  Failed policies that are too extreme to work. Single-issue politicians who are too one-dimensional and committed to their extreme position to get anything done.  And an electorate that just contributes to the situation. 

Is there a solution?  I would love to see one appear in the comments below!!!  Please – be my middle path messiah.

Passive v active secularism

I heard this in philosophy of religion lecture I was attending (yeah that’s how I spend my free time, how about you?).  I found it really fascinating:

The US does not allow prayer in school.  Why?  It is “passive secularism.”  We don’t want to violate the rights of individuals (kids or their parents) by forcing a religious practice on them.  No matter how small or insignificant it seems.  We are concerned with anything that could make anyone uncomfortable for any reason connected to religion.  Even a moment of silence that could be interpreted as a time designated for prayer.

France does not allow prayer in school.  Why?  It is “active secularism.”  They don’t want to violate the rights of the state by forcing a religious practice on it. They are concerned with people wearing religious items to school (necklace with a cross, Muslim headscarf).  They want to keep the students’ religion away from the school rather than the school’s religion away from the student. 

I am not sure I have any specific words of wisdom regarding this dichotomy.  I just never thought about this before.  And I love learning something new and wanted to share it with you all.