Meritocracy FAQ

Aren’t the meritorious already running society?

Politicians don’t have merit as leaders because they don’t care about you and don’t act for your benefit. Even if politicians wanted to improve the world, none of them are smart enough to do it. Career politicians specialize in smiling and shaking hands; they are two-faced power brokers who play along with the super-rich while keeping you in the dark. They’ve shown again and again that they’re neither willing nor able to represent the general will of the people. They represent the will of the elite. This is not meritorious—it’s psychopathic.

A meritorious person has proven that she is capable of using her power for the benefit of everyone. She is talented, with relevant skills and proven experience fixing social problems. Does this sound like a politician to you? Do your politicians respect civil and human rights? Do your politicians implement the general will of the people?
Our democracy has completely failed to select meritorious leaders. The people who run society are not remotely meritorious. Usually they are corrupt lawyers with no useful skills. They couldn’t solve social problems if they tried (and they don’t try). They often care nothing for the general welfare and are instead obsessed with personal wealth and glory. These people have no merit. Throw them out. Bring in the meritorious.

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What if I have no merit? Will I be excluded from politics?

If you didn’t know how to drive, would you get behind the wheel of a school bus? Of course not—you’re a good person with a conscience. Before assuming that responsibility, you would learn from the safest drivers you could find, because you don’t want to kill children!

In Meritocracy, those without merit will have equal access to the best education money can buy. They will go to school, get educated, and start making informed decisions in elections. Want to vote for a leadership position in a given field? Take an assessment that demonstrates knowledge, ability, or experience in that field. Just like you wouldn’t drive a school bus without having a clue, why would you want people voting without having a clue? Meritocracy works by ensuring that all the people making government decisions understand the choices they are making. This is the only responsible way to run a government.

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I was always taught that democracy is the only good political system. Why do you think we can improve on democracy?

The history of human beings is a history of advancement and social improvement. Every aspect of human life has improved when we have worked on it with our intelligence and creativity. Why shouldn’t government improve? Why should our governmental system stop here and now, and be stuck like this forever?

Democracy is ready for an improvement. Meritocracy uses what humanity has learned from democracy and creates something better. We can learn from the successes and failures of democracy and use this knowledge to create a better government—just like we improved previous forms of government to create democracy. Whichever country adopts a next-generation system of government will lead the entire species to a brighter future. Get on board with progress! Improve your government! Join the Meritocracy Party!

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Isn’t it inevitable that the super-rich will ruin Meritocracy like they ruined democracy?

Over the long course of history, power has been transferred away from the dictators and to the people. Why should this stop now? A few jerks will always try to ruin any system, but over time the systems have improved, and now we have fewer dictators wrecking life for the rest of us. Improving government is the surest way to disempower the bad guys, and history has proven that smart government leads to increased freedom for everyone. Don’t you think it will be much harder to corrupt a Meritocracy? Meritocracy is specifically designed to stop any family from gaining enough power to ruin the system.

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If we want better government, why don’t we just vote for better schools, honest media, more effective healthcare, etc.?

The simple fact is, we don’t have the power to vote for these things. Even if the community votes to amend a constitution, accept a bond issue, or modify a school district’s budget, the citizens don’t have a voice in how that amendment is written or how that money is spent. We elect politicians to write our laws, manage the budgets, and make the decisions. This type of voting has failed to deliver. Our votes go into a black hole and nothing gets changed. Again and again, democracy leads to lowest-common-denominator government, government that is either incompetent or corrupt. How are incompetent or corrupt people going to improve education? If the knowledgeable and altruistic don’t take the reigns, the ignorant and greedy will hold government in a destructive feedback loop. Ignorant voters empower evil governments. Evil governments create ignorant voters. It’s the Dumb-o-cracy Death Spiral.

Why don’t we vet politicians like we vet air traffic controllers? Politicians are responsible for an entire nation, yet we have no processes to make sure they aren’t grossly incompetent or wildly ignorant. We need Meritocracy because Meritocracy is the system that finds, tests, and empowers the specific experts who are actually capable and willing to create effective healthcare or end destructive wars or fix our school system. We will never resolve social problems until we choose the right leaders. Meritocracy is specifically designed to choose the right leaders—the best among us—the ones who are willing and capable of fixing the key issues that we all want fixed.

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Isn’t Meritocracy undemocratic?

Democracy has failed to achieve the social goals that we all want. Democracy was an improvement over monarchy, but modern democracies are now stagnating and threatened with collapse. This is intrinsic government failure, and simplistic democracy is the root cause. To fix our social issues we must look beyond simplistic forms of government to create something more powerful and intelligent. Meritocracy uses democratic processes in a better way to minimize the huge downsides that have been discovered in democratic countries. Empirically, the final result of democracy has been to empower a few super-rich families and exploit the rest of us.

The system that improves on democracy will have to be undemocratic. Meritocracy fixes the bugs in democracy by using what has worked and discarding what has failed. The super-rich are willing to use their money and influence to break the government—Meritocracy is designed to prevent this. Meritocracy creates more freedom, ensures equal opportunity, achieves equal representation, and delivers the benefits of civilization to every person. Democracy has not done this and never will.

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Doesn’t government always make things worse?

The freedoms we currently enjoy came about because good people stood up and created better governments. The medieval governments had almost no freedom; most of us were slaves to feudal lords. By improving those crappy governments, we increased our freedom and now we have better lives. History has shown again and again that improving government improves our lives.

It is bad government that is the threat, and democracy has shown itself to be bad government. Meritocracy is specifically designed to improve on democracy. Intelligent government formed intelligently will improve society, and don’t you think that Meritocracy is an intelligent form of government? Meritocracy takes what has worked and discards what has failed, resulting in greater prosperity, freedom, opportunity, health, and education. In short, Meritocracy is a tried and tested way for creating a good government. Meritocracy makes your government better.

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Won’t getting rid of all government solve our problems?

Without government, there is only one law: the Law of the Jungle. The Law of the Jungle says that the strong get everything and the weak are enslaved. The Law of the Jungle is the end of civilization—it is the lack of civilization. “No government” means that the poor truly have less than nothing. Warlords with gangs of bullies and psychopaths will spend all their time enslaving the rest of us. The world will be divided into bullies who have no souls, and miserable, powerless slaves. Nobody benefits when civilization is destroyed. Destroying government is not the answer.

Instead of destroying government, help government improve. Meritocracy is specifically designed to improve our government. It hamstrings bullies and psychopaths. It halts the destructive, interfamilial feud. It prevents the concentration of wealth in the hands of the corrupt and selfish. Meritocracy fixes the issues with government. It will go a long way toward solving our problems.

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What about big government? Is Meritocracy going to shrink government?

No system is so simple that “just shrinking it” will automatically fix social issues. Fixing government takes intelligence and skill, which are acquired only through effort, thought, and experimentation. Meritocracy has been developed by some of the smartest people our society has, as a realistic solution that will actually improve all of our lives. It makes sense, it is logical, and it proposes a specific plan. “Shrinking government” is nothing but a slogan.

The people who want to shrink government never explain how your life will improve. They cheaply demand your faith. When their policies fail, they tell you to wait around. They tell you the layoffs, recessions, depressions, and poverty should all just be endured passively. Don’t worry, fate will kick in eventually! Meanwhile, your family is starving and your country is crumbling. Don’t blindly believe their deceitful nonsense. It never makes any sense. Don’t wait for fate, either. There is no need. Meritocracy does not require faith; anyone can understand it. It is reasonable and conceptually simple. It is a proven, working system that has already been deployed. Why not bring reason back to political discussion? Join the Meritocracy Party!

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Isn’t it natural to pass wealth to children? How can any “system” stop natural behavior?

The purpose of every social system is to convert destructive natural behavior into productive artificial behavior. How does it help anyone when families are constantly fighting against one another instead of cooperating? Competition is only constructive if the score resets to 0-0 after the game. When one group of families consolidates wealth and power without ever resetting, they dominate society and the rest of us lose our freedom. Just like we create fair rules in sports to protect the fun of the game, let’s build fair rules in society to protect us from the corrupt power of nepotism. Let’s make a rule that rich families are not allowed to have destructive power. The millionaire inheritance tax protects your children from cruel aristocrats.

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What if I want to pass my business on to my son whom I’ve trained from birth to run it?

What system would you design to find the most meritorious CEO to replace you? Why not have a society where every position of power is filled by the person who is best suited for it? If your son is the most meritorious, let the Meritocratic system pick him for the job. But shouldn’t the role go to whoever can prove himself? Don’t infantilize your son by giving him rewards he didn’t earn.

When everyone is judged on merit rather than family connections, we all benefit. We won’t pass privilege to our kids, but neither will other families. The Meritocratic system you design for selecting meritorious leaders should apply equally to everyone, including your kids. Any other policy leads to a destructive conflict spiral—a family feud that holds our species back.

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Can’t unscrupulous parents just give wealth to their kids before death, avoiding the millionaire inheritance tax? How will Meritocracy handle legal loopholes?

Loopholes can be closed. It should be a crime for one family to accumulate dangerous sums of power and wealth, because those hoards are used as weapons, and they threaten the freedom and prosperity of everyone else. Meritocracy will have laws, task forces, and regulatory bodies to deal with loopholes. These technical policy issues are solvable challenges. Today’s super-rich find it easy to evade taxes precisely because democracy is working for them—not us. It is democracy that has allowed these loopholes to gape open. Meritocracy will close any loopholes that allow for the creation of dynasties. Laws will be passed to set limits on the amount of property that is transferable to children. Meritorious people will be elected who will sniff out shell companies and expose corrupt families that want to establish dynastic wealth. Loopholes are well-worn problems, with a variety of established solutions. Meritocracy’s competent leaders will be capable and motivated to close tax evasion loopholes.

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Won’t preventing inheritance undermine people’s work ethic when parents are no longer able to save up for their kids?

The threat of your kids being disadvantaged might motivate you to work, but this kind of destructive interfamilial competition keeps us all focused on accumulating when we’d rather focus on excelling at our passions. Most of us want to be autonomous, creative, inspired, engaged and competent; we feel our greatest joy when we’re contributing to both our families and our communities. Instead of creating an interfamilial threat to motivate work, Meritocracy unlocks a far more powerful energy source: passion for excellence.

Instead of funneling wealth to your kids as protection against economic exploitation, why not give them a better world? Why not give them a world where no family ever worries about hunger or homelessness? Meritocracy ends the threat of aristocratic dynasties. Meritocracy puts everyone on equal footing. With Meritocracy, everyone will have a chance to make a dent in the world, and this leads to fiery motivation.

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Doesn’t a millionaire inheritance tax infringe on the freedom of millionaires to do what they please with their wealth?

Real freedom is when every child has the opportunity to develop his or her talents; when every sick person has access to healthcare, and every family has a roof over their head. Do you honestly think that the most important freedom right now is the freedom for millionaires to throw their weight around? Just how concerned should we be with the freedom for millionaires to abuse employees and bribe politicians? Having freedom to stomp on innocent people may be one kind of perverse freedom, but what about the freedom of the underclass? What about the freedom of the poor kids born in American ghettos, or the freedom of the laid-off worker replaced by Chinese slaves? What about the freedom of those Chinese, working for almost no pay at all? Rigging markets, buying slave labor, selling snake oil, getting away with murder—these aren’t legitimate freedoms! Freedom doesn’t just mean letting millionaires do whatever!

Shouting “More Freedom for Millionaires!” while children are literally dying of malnutrition is completely immoral. Worry about Donald Trump’s quality of life when New York’s mentally ill are not living on the streets. How can anyone concern themselves with the refined liberties of Goldman Sachs executives, when their millionaire’s liberty was used to cause a famine in the 1990s by gambling with food prices? What kind of a moral universe must someone live in for the key freedom in question to be the freedom of Goldman Sachs executives to starve people? What kind of person focuses on millionaires’ freedom while treating the loss of freedom felt by the dead and hungry as irrelevant? How can millionaires’ freedom ever be a relevant issue? Whatever policies our society implements to solve social problems, we must consider everyone’s welfare as equally important. Since millionaires have zero actual problems in this world, their welfare is not on the agenda.

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Won’t Meritocrats just abuse their power and screw over the rest of society the way politicians and CEOs currently do?

If a particular expert abuses his position, the other people in his field will instantly see this because they can tell the difference between a good idea and a bad idea. An economist who claims that he is helping the economy while actually just helping his friends will fool the general public, but he cannot fool all the economists in the country. The people responsible for picking the economics leadership will be qualified to see through self-serving lies. An elected leader who pushes corrupt policies will be quickly recognized and removed. He will be exposed as unmeritorious, and no expert will ever trust him again. Experts don’t care about speeches or slogans, and can’t be fooled that easily.

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Can’t media propaganda just trick people into thinking that someone has merit, when he actually does not?

A meritorious person is elected by those qualified to judge merit for that specific position of power. The most informed people, who are making the key decisions, will have no interest in media reports. Experts in a particular field are far better informed than the media could ever hope to be. Can you imagine Bill O’Reilly trying to tell pharmacists what drugs to prescribe? He would be laughed out of the studio.

In democracy, media propaganda is very dangerous; it makes foolish people hold strong opinions on issues that they are clueless about. But when the electorate is made up of highly informed specialists, there is no threat that propaganda will determine policy. In Meritocracy, the media brainwashing machine is completely disarmed by the collective influence of qualified experts.

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If people aren’t afraid of falling into poverty, what will stop them from slacking off and letting the economy suffer?

Research has shown that workers threatened by poverty are less creative, less engaged, and achieve poorer results. You can have slave workers grinding from paycheck to paycheck, or you can have healthy employees dipping into inspiration, being creative, striving for excellence, and aiming to make a dent in the world. Which do you think results in a better economy? The most productive members of our society do not feel threatened by poverty, so don’t fall for the lie that poverty helps productivity. Slaves do shoddy, uninspired work. No employer should ever be pressured to use slave labor.

Most of us are best motivated when we have the chance to develop our talents, be creative, and contribute to the world. The real crime is that millions of us toil at hopeless busywork without getting a chance to unlock our talent. When high quality education is available for everyone, a tidal wave of talent will rush into the economy, as the bored and depressed start unearthing tremendous reservoirs of potential. Kids from ghettos and broken homes will get nutritious food, the best healthcare, and high quality education. The Meritocratic education system is specifically designed to help each of us actualize our highest passions. The wasted potential of the oppressed will be unleashed, and our Star Trek future will start to emerge. We will create the greatest economic boom in history.

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How does Meritocracy differ from all the other utopian schemes that were dangerous and harmful?

Charlatans use the promise of utopia to fool people. But Meritocracy is not a utopian vision; it’s a dead-simple, perfectly reasonable system based on tried and tested principles. It is not pie-in-the-sky; it is here-and-now. Meritocracy is centered on the real problems that we have today and describes precisely what steps must be taken to solve those problems. Meritocracy is logical and practical; it does not ask for faith.

Don’t succumb to fantasy-based solutions. Use your head, make an effort, think it all through, and ask questions. Reject any proposal that doesn’t make logical sense. Reject anyone who tells you that the world will be saved by submission, by love, by passivity, or by faith. These fantasies don’t make sense; they won’t solve social issues. Meritocracy makes perfect sense—anyone can understand it and anyone can see that it works.

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Don’t you think innovators like Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, and Thomas Edison earned their fortunes?

They did earn their wealth, but then they died. Their kids didn’t earn anything. Is it right that when a millionaire dies, his wealth should be used as a weapon to enslave the rest of us? Trust fund babies guard their hoard by bribing politicians, exploiting tax loopholes, and undermining the opportunities of everyone else. They don’t even go to jail when they commit crimes. The millionaire inheritance tax puts an end to dynastic family wealth and eliminates the growing threat of new royalty. In Meritocracy, those who make great contributions will earn great rewards. The babies of those who make great contributions will have the same opportunities as everyone else. They will not be allowed to use unearned wealth as a weapon. They will not be given “get out of jail free” cards.

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Doesn’t Meritocracy assume that many more people have “the right stuff” to be leaders?

True leadership doesn’t come from being born with a silver spoon in your mouth. A true leader isn’t made when his dad pulls some strings and lands him a cushy job at the top of the org chart. How many genuinely competent aristocratic playboys have you met? These Princes are clueless and they have no actual leadership ability. The privileged son of a CEO did not earn his office and is not suited for it—regardless of what his $10,000 bespoke suit says.

Stop worshipping these friendly, well-dressed, well-groomed, empty shells. It’s just an illusion. All the privileged have is illusion. There is way more leadership potential in the poor than there could ever be in the top 1%. The poor and middle class have experienced actual hardship and challenges. The blue bloods that swell the upper ranks of corporations and governments had everything gifted to them—no work required.

Meritocracy is specifically designed to promote those who have true ability, not those with the richest parents. The public will see the rottenness of the current crop of leaders when Meritocracy is instituted, and those false leaders are eclipsed by the tremendous skill and tenacity of the meritorious.

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Isn’t technology and the complexity of life part of the problem? How will Meritocracy bring us back to our roots, instead of overwhelming us with techno-madness?

Techno-madness is a form of consumerism, where marketing departments spend millions convincing you to be obsessed with shopping. Techno-madness is techno-abuse, similar to drug abuse. If technology is abused, it becomes dehumanizing and alienating. The best engineers in the world right now spend their lives doing trivial things like keeping Farmville running. This is a disgusting waste of talent, and an embarrassment to our species. Meritocracy will change the economic incentives so that talented engineers will work at improving the world, not extracting a few dollars from bored web surfers. Meritocracy is a solution to techno-madness because it redirects technologists toward real social problems. What if all the scientists who make bombs for the military started working to end environmental destruction? Meritocracy can do that. If technology is used intelligently it will enhance what is best about humanity; it will become a vector of liberation for the human spirit.

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Won’t Meritocracy lose out on all the philanthropy that powerful men provide?

The typical super-rich man has no interest in helping the public and no ability to do so, anyway. Most super-rich people specialize in one thing: making themselves richer. If they actually cared about society they would not hoard wealth. They would not pay politicians to pass laws that damage the rest of us. Even if a billionaire has a change of heart in his old age, and decides to give to charity, he doesn’t have the right skills for improving society.

Bill Gates spent his entire life learning how to destroy small companies before they could grow big enough to compete with Microsoft. Now he wants to donate his plundered fortune. But is he qualified? Wouldn’t a team of the best experts from medicine, engineering, economics, sociology, and psychology make smarter choices than William Henry Gates the Third? Why has Bill Gates been given this power? Because he was greedier than his competitors? Because he was ruthless in padding his bank account?

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Most family fortunes were not earned through contributions to society, but don’t you still think it is immoral to seize their wealth?

If someone builds a hoard by screwing people over, he hasn’t earned anything. It is stolen wealth. His wealth is illegitimate and should be returned to the victims. Most of the super-rich hoards are illegitimate and the right thing to do is to return that money to the people it was taken from. Slave-owner families in the Confederate states still pass down inherited wealth, originally earned by the labor of black slaves. Millions of black families were violently stripped of everything. What is immoral is that those families have not received justice. What is morally wrong is when millionaires pay politicians to write laws that make healthcare unaffordable for disenfranchised families. What is wrong is when family fortunes—made on the backs of slaves—are used to drive up the cost of housing and put innocent people out on the street. It is obvious who the immoral criminals are. There is nothing noble about allowing super-rich families to hoard illegitimate wealth that was pilfered from the enslaved and conquered. Taking it back and giving it to the victims—disenfranchised families—is the only morally acceptable policy.

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Does a Goldman Sachs trader who worked his way up from nothing, without ever getting parental help, count as meritorious?

A psychopath who knows how to lie, bully, and con people is not meritorious under any circumstances. He’s just a scumbag criminal. The errand boys of the privileged blue bloods don’t have merit; they have criminal tendencies. A lack of a conscience is not merit; it is the opposite of merit. A willingness to screw over your fellow man is not merit; it is disgusting and immoral. Most of us have no desire to screw our communities, but for some reason the positions of power in our society are held by liars and thieves who constantly screw people over.

Never fall for the lie that the greediest people have the most merit. A schoolyard bully may get your lunch money, but did he earn it? Thievery isn’t merit. The difference between a parasite and an honest person is that a parasite takes without giving back. An honest person is happy to help, while a parasite never helps. A parasite uses people, and his wealth is therefore illegitimate. His “customers” should actually be called “victims”. The Goldman Sachs investment advisors told their clients to buy stocks that Goldman Sachs was secretly betting would fail. Meritocracy removes these psychopaths from power. A person consumed by greed can never be meritorious and has no place in any position of power.

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Doesn’t democracy use the wisdom of crowds to organically pick the best leaders?

The “wisdom of crowds” has debunked itself. The wisdom of crowds has brought us failure after failure, whether it is trampling people on Black Friday, giving snake-oil salesmen the nuclear launch codes, or cultish groupthink where a herd of people blindly follow each other off a cliff.

The public is led by tabloid reporting and professional liars. Impossible promises and dapper style is all it takes for a suave saviour to bewitch the public. The collective IQ plunges when a powerful leader flatters the masses. This is no way to make important decisions.

The wisdom of crowds is deranged. Democracy has proved that the wisdom of crowds gives us empty suits for leaders—people who specialize in shaking hands. It’s not wisdom at all; it’s just mob rule.

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Didn’t economists cause the 2008 financial crisis? Won’t Meritocracy just put the country in the hands of fraudulent experts like this?

The frauds who caused the 2008 crisis were not meritorious experts; they were privileged cronies of corrupt politicians. In democracy, a politician has to pick experts for various government roles, but he has no ability to judge who is an expert because he’s just an ignorant politician. So he picks his friends—no matter how foolish or greedy they are.

Whom would you trust to pick the smartest doctor in the country? The collective opinion of all qualified health professionals? Or President Bush? Those who are clueless about healthcare should not vote for the healthcare leadership, because non-experts have no ability to identify who is qualified. Meritocracy would have prevented the 2008 financial crisis. Many meritorious experts saw the warning signs, but were ignored by corrupt and stupid politicians.

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If I won’t get to vote for President in Meritocracy, what role will I play in shaping my government?

What is your area of expertise? Meritocracy empowers you to make important governmental decisions where your skills count the most. Surgeons will carry the scalpels, pilots will fly the planes, and you will have responsibility for your specialty. Meritocracy will give you the best education you can handle, and you will rise to a place where your talent will be valuable and well used. You will vote for experts in your specialty who have convinced you that they are capable and willing to help society. You could be elected to government office and implement policy based on your life’s work. Meritocracy asks all meritorious people to participate in the formation of government.

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Isn’t love the answer? If we spread the power of love, won’t that convince people to stop hoarding?

Humans tend to hoard because we worry about our families. If you do not hoard, someone else will, resulting in your kids being disadvantaged. This is a legitimate fear in a society that makes it possible for one family to dominate all the others. The answer is to stop any family from gaining too much power. If your government kept families from consolidating destructive power, you would feel safer about your child’s future. When Meritocracy ends the risk that your child could be economically abused, you will be able to relax and focus on serving your community, spreading love, and creating a beautiful earth to pass to the next generation. Love can only flourish when abuse is not tolerated.

What kind of society do you want? A comfortable community where families work toward a common good, secure in the knowledge that their children will always have enough? Or a hellish economic hierarchy where everyone is constantly paranoid, and psychopathic families seek unlimited wealth for use as a weapon? Meritocracy ends the family feud. It eliminates the threat that overwhelming wealth poses to your children. When other families do not threaten your child’s freedom, you will not worry about hoarding. We will all feel safe enough; we will work together to create our Star Trek future.

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What’s so wrong about passing on wealth and connections to protect your kids from harm?

Why should you have to protect your kids from blue bloods? Why should parents accept the risk that our children will be abused by wealthy jerks who like to throw their weight around? Let’s use our collective power to protect our families against bullies and psychopaths. When our society eliminates nepotism, cronyism, and privilege, all children will be on safe and equal footing—no one will have to fret about their child’s future. You’ll know that your son or daughter will have all the same opportunities and resources as other children: everything needed to be happy, creative, fulfilled, and prosperous. When equal access to the benefits of civilization is recognized as a human right, you will stop worrying about protecting your kids. All the basic necessities of life will be available to everyone, and denied to no one. Meritocracy eliminates the threat of abusive dynasties. Meritocracy gives everyone everything they need to thrive. Meritocracy is the best way to protect your kids. Pass on a better world to your children.

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Isn’t giving people free housing, education, and healthcare communist?

Communists also wore hats, ate sausage, and used cutlery. Does that make hats, sausages, and cutlery communist? Did you know that Hitler drank tea? Maybe you should do a Sieg Heil every time you take a sip, because drinking tea obviously makes you a Nazi.

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Isn’t the state incompetent? How can an incompetent state help individuals achieve positive liberty?

The state is incompetent because democracy empowers idiots and cronies. Our political leadership is irredeemably corrupt. Meritocracy instantly solves the competency problem by asking you to vote within your area of expertise, and asking you to refrain from voting on issues where you’re ignorant. The state’s incompetence is directly due to the failure of democracy. Positive liberty will be achieved through the competent Meritocratic state, made up of the best minds humanity has to offer, each operating within their own area of expertise.

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How can a Meritocratic government turn docile sheep into empowered citizens?

Sheep can be enlightened. Meritocracy is designed to find the best educators in the country and put them in charge of giving every person a lavish education. First-class educations are a liberating force that leads to enlightenment. Pupils will discover deep reservoirs of inner strength and character. Instead of stuffing kids into uncomfortable desks and ordering them to blindly obey for 6 hours a day, schools in a Meritocracy will teach students to take initiative, be creative, and come up with new approaches that extend the fundamentals. Schools will reward and exalt creativity and passion, they will become incubators of radical ideas, and the best ideas will burst from the school doors with their brilliance, spread across society, and transform us into something new and amazing. Never again will kids march around a prison block at the toll of a bell. We all know that today’s schools are more concerned with obedience training than they are with education. A Meritocratic government’s first action will be to enlighten the schools.

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What if the government just wastes all the revenue from inheritance tax on pointless wars?

Do you really think Meritocrats would have started the Iraq War? Almost every single independent expert denounced the Iraq War before it started. There were only two educated groups who wanted it: war profiteers and the Israel lobby. Every other informed or educated group was against the war. This war could never happen in a Meritocracy. It would be unthinkable. It would never be on the table. In our democracy, all the experts were ignored while the war profiteers shouted deceptive slogans. Meritocracy would put the ignored experts in the Whitehouse, and put war profiteer Dick Cheney behind bars. Join the Meritocracy Party and make sure that war profiteers will never again send your kids to die for Halliburton.

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Isn’t there a risk that splitting up psychological types will create a bunch of echo chambers, where people are denied valuable growth experience with other types?

People will still engage and cooperate with other types, but it will happen in a much more productive way. For effective learning, people must be free from irritations and interruptions. When you mix types during learning, everyone is somewhat distracted and disoriented. Miscommunication is a constant source of friction—a waste of energy. It’s like trying to learn calculus while the fire alarm is screaming at you. The various psychological types will still interact socially and professionally, but this interaction will happen in far more productive settings, where the diversity is beneficial, not an uncomfortable drag.

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Doesn’t Meritocracy violate the sanctity of the free market?

There is no free market. The markets are completely captured—dominated by cartels of one sort or another. Don’t say the market is free; say that it is rigged, enslaved, held hostage. Today’s markets are not much more than traps for suckers. How many billions have been stolen from pensions using market manipulation? The free market myth is just another way for insider traders, cartels, oligopolies, influence networks, and super-rich cronies to extract money from the gullible. Corrupt politicians elected through democracy prop up many of these cartels. Other cartels formed naturally due to a lack of anti-trust enforcement—government failure.

Economists use the term “market distortion” to describe a situation where the market is not free because it has been rigged, broken, captured, or violated. Right now our markets could scarcely be more “distorted”. Anyone who says we should “protect the free market” must be referring to a fantasy world because there is definitely no free market in this world. Is it a free market when the corrupt government grants astronomical subsidies to certain agriculture corporations? Is it a free market when a handful of phone companies buy the entire infrastructure and collude to raise prices?

Free markets are important economic tools, but they only work when a competent government takes control and is able to prevent cartels, monopolies, oligopolies, collusion, capital concentration, and insider trading. Democracy will never deal with these issues. Kill the market manipulators—join the Meritocracy Party! Meritocracy will expose and eliminate the market-destroying cartels.

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Why do you think throwing money at education will improve it?

Research has exposed the classroom system as archaic; the school system has failed to adapt since the industrial revolution. Teaching experts have researched and developed new forms of learning and demonstrated how they work, but incompetent and corrupt politicians have ignored these superior methods.

A Meritocratic state doesn’t throw money at the problem. Rather, a meritocratic state is all about finding and engaging intelligence, about putting the smartest people to work. The Meritocratic motto is “Don’t throw money at a problem! Use intelligence!” Experimentation, passion, creativity, and the smartest experts in the world—these are the forces that will improve education. Money alone will never be enough. What we need is the experience and intelligence of our brightest educators and researchers—the meritorious. Meritocracy doesn’t just make resources available; it gives these experts the power they need to create a next-generation education system—one that will lead to our Star Trek future.

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Won’t ending environmental destruction harm the economy?

What kind of sick society considers destroying the earth good for the economy? Can you wrap your mind around how twisted our economic leadership is? Economics is supposed to be about generating wealth for the species, but as a species our most valuable assets are clean water, intact ecosystems, and safe coasts to live on. Destroying these assets can never be good for the economy.

Corrupt government economists assert that a healthy environment has no economic value. But go ask a randomly selected economics professor. She will report that the economics profession strongly advocates that government must “internalize the externalities” to promote national wealth. Internalizing the externalities means that corporations or people who damage the environment (or the public good in general) must be held accountable for that damage. If they aren’t made accountable, the economy suffers. Why is there such a difference between corrupt government economists and real economists?

A healthy environment is a tremendous source of wealth. Improvements to the environment should be measured as economic output in the GDP. Environmental destruction should be subtracted from the GDP, so that we can’t fool ourselves with misleading statistics. Environmental destruction is killing the goose that lays our golden eggs. If we want to be prosperous we have to end this shortsighted “corporate” mentality—this mentality that would shoot itself in the face to generate profit before quarter-end. Preserving our earth, wildlife, water, and air is very good for the economy.

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Even with the millionaire inheritance tax, won’t families still viciously compete because interfamilial competition is natural behavior?

The family feud is a destructive conflict spiral that eliminates any hope of healthy community. The conflict spiral starts when one greedy family gains extra power or prestige, and threatens to use it to abuse others. Other families then seek defensive power to avoid being abused. 90% of these zero-sum game players would not pursue power if they were not threatened in the first place, demonstrating the pointlessness of this conflict spiral. A Meritocratic government that outlaws any kind of dynastic power accumulation will stop the arms race. Only a few die-hard psychopaths will still engage in the conflict, but they will be so impotent that no one else will feel threatened. The conflict spiral will cease.

When a conflict spiral is allowed to develop, it quickly leads to the annihilation of cooperative spirit. A hopeless zero-sum game is born. Families who would otherwise be generous and magnanimous become paranoid and hostile. The family feud is destructive for every family—even the winners—because the wasted energy that is lost to the conflict deprives the entire species of social and technological progress. Instead of enjoying our Star Trek future, we get stuck with a crappy winner-takes-all rat race.

Why not build a community where everyone feels secure enough to contribute to the general good? A Meritocratic government will stop conflict spirals before they start. Do you want to live in a world of perpetual family feud, each family constantly back-stabbing the others? Or would you prefer a world where you can support your own family, but also support your community? A world where you don’t have to worry about the psychopathic few who would put you down to prop themselves up?

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Does Meritocracy care about equal representation?

The issue here is how you define equal representation. Meritocracy achieves equal representation where democracy fails.

Does your democracy benefit every single person equally? When a decision is made by a democracy, nine times out of ten that decision will benefit a few super-rich families while disadvantaging everyone else. That’s not equal representation. In the United States, multi-millionaires have lower tax rates than their secretaries. Who is democracy working for? The history of democracy shows that visiting the ballot box every few years does not lead to equal representation. Politicians get into power and then ignore the will of the people. When politicians can lie to get elected, you have no representation at all.

Meritocracy achieves equal representation by actually accomplishing social goals. We all want more prosperity, better healthcare, educational opportunities, and an end to poverty. Meritocracy puts qualified experts in the right places so that government will actually achieve these objectives. By accomplishing social goals, Meritocracy enacts the general will of the people and demonstrates equal representation. Meritocracy doesn’t just say it will improve society; it actually has a logical plan, and a credible way of doing it.

The Meritocratic government is explicitly chartered to improve the quality of life of all citizens. Leadership positions are publicly vetted and all stakeholders have a voice. Anyone can be a leader by proving their merit. Demonstrate your knowledge, your skill, your proven experience, your plan for solving social issues. Convince the others in your area of expertise that you can help. The Meritocratic system picks leaders on the basis of their ability and willingness to benefit everyone, and when everyone is genuinely benefited, everyone is genuinely represented.

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Won’t experts just vote for their own self-interest? What’s to stop all the doctors from being corrupt and voting themselves more money?

Do you really think all doctors are corrupt? Or just an elite few who, by nature of their greed, have amassed more power and wealth than the others?

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What would happen to a large business if the person who created it died suddenly? Who would become the owner if there were no spouse or children? Would the state be able to own businesses?

Bear in mind that most truly large businesses are corporations owned by shareholders. The death of one “owner” would mean very little, as that person’s shares could simply be sold at the current market value. A sole-proprietorship (business run by a single individual), on the other hand, could be put for sale or shut down and liquidated. A “large” business is presumably a profitable business, which would probably make it appealing to buyers. However, if no one wanted to purchase the business and continue operating it, the doors would be shut, the merchandise and infrastructure sold, and that would be the end of it.
Meritocracy embraces an economic policy of “social capitalism”. While it advocates strong regulation and even sponsorship of markets, it does not aim to own and operate all businesses.