reading Rawls and his thoughts on justice has shattered my long held support of meritocracy
meritocracy being: reward individuals proportional to their performance
meritocracy is unjust
is it the fault of a "purple" person that they can't do what "green" person does
(say, "one handed person" vs "two handed")
is it "just" for a "purple", by virtue of their birth, to live a lower quality of life (for the same effort)
is it "just" for "green", by virtue of their birth, to live a higher quality of life (for the same effort)
capitalism aims for meritocracy
ostensibly, want to reward making an effort
~ motivate creating benefit
~ motivate learning, working, investing capital
in practice, rewards rarity
(because value captured is driven down by competition)
society
has a demand for things
has people with
a diverse set of in-born skill potential
(no matter if they had all the perfect opportunities, not every baby could become the fastest runner...)
diverse access to education
diverse access to market opportunities
one's demand for physical safety, shelter, food, etc. is forced upon us by virtue of our birth; as is most of our ability to "earn" to cover for that demand
if the system forces one to participate in the market to meet basic needs, but, the system also leads supply-demand to make it near impossible to do so for some people, then the system is failing those people
as mentioned in other posts, capitalism is anti-democratic, because, the market is governance, and those with more capital are able to participate/influence/"vote in" the market more than others