Meritocracy

The goal of America along with other free market democracies is meritocracy. (A society in which people are chosen and moved into positions of success, power, and influence on the basis of their demonstrated abilities and merit). This is an admirable goal and one to strive for but it will never be completely achieved. On the other side of the coin is a popular movement called equity (Where government interviens to promote equality based on things like race and past discrimination.) One extreme example of equity is reparations. Another is adjusting test scores to create a proper outcome. One early example was affirmative action and that is still practiced today. If not handled properly this results in phases like token Black or token woman. It can also replace one unfair situation with another. A certain amount of government regulation can help move toward equity but too much can create animosity amoung groups. Immigration is one area where equity conflicts with equality. If legal immigrants are judged on their merits we would have most of them coming from Asia. The opposie of this is the old lottery system where so many were accepted from certain countries based on population. If the boss tries to hire new people with the intent to give preferential treatment to minorities this would be considered okey by most but if the boss lays off a White person and replaces that person with a Black this would not be okey. It gets a little tricky when promotions come up since a lot may depend on subjective means of merit. In trying to right past wrongs care must be taken not to add to the discontent.