[OC] No, meritocracy is NOT anarchy

Submitted by ziq in Anarchism (edited )

A meritocracy requires authority to function. The authority decides what and who is deserving of merit, by measuring how much it would benefit their own interests - primary among them, the furthering of their authority.

By pitting people against each other to prove their "merit" to the authority, the authority successfully maintains a hierarchy with them at the top, their merit-granted lackeys next on the ladder, and everyone who hasn't been deemed worthy of merit at the bottom of the pile fighting for scraps.

Those who have been granted merit then uphold and shield the authority that granted them the merit in order to safeguard their own position on the pyramid.

You can see a glaring example of meritocracy in academia with the tenure system that permanently distinguishes the chosen ones above their untenured subordinates. Every academic struggles for years to join the tenured ranks. They have to be cautious to never hold any kind of controversial, anti-establishment views that would be shunned by their peers, as this would result in them being denied tenure. Threatening the established order is the worst crime someone who desires merit can commit.

Those who have been fortunate and uncontroversial enough to be granted merit cling to their privilege to the detriment of everyone below them, the merit-less masses who have been deemed by the all-knowing authority to be undeserving of accolades.

The merit-granting authority can be a single dictator or a diverse democratic body of dozens or even thousands, it doesn't make a difference. It's still authority and it's still a class system. A meritocracy is a clear hierarchy that divides us into haves and have-nots. Deserving and undeserving. Worthy and unworthy. Good and bad. Rulers and obeyers.

With people fighting each other tooth and nail to gain the favor of the authority and secure their place under them or by their side, the authority's power is sealed and everyone ultimately loses. Whether they are one of the few who eventually get granted merit or not, they still wasted their life competing for the authority's favor.

"Anarchists" who claim anarchy is about meritocracy are diluting the meaning of anarchy to a perverse extent. What they're advocating for is really no different than garden-variety liberalism. They don't actually want people to be free or equal, they want themselves to be elevated above the riff raff. To be granted the authority of merit so that they can feel superior to those deemed unremarkable.

Equality doesn't come from separating people into ordinary and extraordinary classes.

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

I'm glad to say I've never heard of an anarcho-communist who believes in meritocracy.

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

https://old.reddit.com/r/Anarchism/comments/cqq02p/im_pretty_disgusted_at_the_fact_that_some_people/ex0y7w1/

Anarchist theory differentiates between justified hierarchies and unjustified hierarchies. A surgeon is at the top of the hierarchy in an operating room. That's a justified hierarchy. The trust fund baby who inherited the hospital from his father is unjustified. A cooperative that elects their management is a justified hierarchy. A corporation controlled by a board of major shareholders that fill top executive roles with their friends is not justified.

Anarchists advocate for democracy and meritocracy. Capitalists often claim they advocate for these ideals but do they? If they wanted meritocracy they would advocate for the abolition of inheritence, the abolition of racism, sexism, and all xenophobias, and equal healthcare, housing, education for all. Why should the children of rich parents get a head start? Hard work builds character does it not? Shouldn't a person rise to their position without any handouts? If Capitalists advocated for democracy they would abolish corporations and the stock market where dollars = votes and the workplace is a top down tyranny with no bottom-up democratic accountability.

EDIT some more:

There is a difference between justified authority and unjustified authority. If you are bleeding out a surgeon has justified authority over your body. They are using their authority over your body as a tool to heal you. What justifies that authority? The fact that they have the merit to assume it and the consent of the majority to do so when you're reasonably unable to assume authority over your body.

Every anarchist should be in favor of meritocracy. Those that want to be surgeons should be surgeons. Those that want to be builders should build. Those that want to paint should paint. The best among them should be given responsibility equal to their talents should they want them and I would hope would be democratically elected to do so. Anarchism is not "without leaders and teachers" it's "without unjustified hierarchy".

Here's Chomsky explaining it better than I can

The best in a field should not be given absolute power to dictate orders of course, but their knowledge and experience should be respected what it's due - on merit alone, nothing else - not family prestige, not inheritence, skin color, class, caste, or any other privelage. It's a disturbing thought to think how many geniuses that could have risen to their potential if they had thr chance to that have wasted and died in fields and factories to produce profit for people without merit - lazy and lucky capitalists and landlords birthed into the right situation.

Try to imagine an anarchist utopian society. If there was an absolute absence of hierarchy, even justified hierarchy, then whatever is most agreed upon would rule and a chaotic hierarchy would form - think of all the people out there that are climate change deniers and anti-vaxxers. If we all just blindly follow the most popular thing we would just be an Instagram society.

A society based on justified hierarchy would look more like Star Trek.

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

Eh, that person's about as anarcho-communist as a sausage mcmuffin.

Chomsky's "no unjustified hierarchies" dungpile is one weird double-edged sword.

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

no unjustified hierarchies

It's also widely accepted by ancoms who refuse to stop clinging to it no matter how many times it's demonstrated to them that its ridiculously authority-forming. If they believe in justified authority, idk why they wouldn't believe in meritocracy also. The entire concept of justified authority IS meritocracy to a key. It's an authority that's been granted to them because its "merited".

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NeoliberalismKills wrote

I always took hierarchy here to mean competency or mastery of subject and people willingly deferred, a la Bakunin's cobbler analogy. Do I misunderstand what they're saying or are you disagreeing with Bakunin?

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kore wrote (edited )

Not to speak for them, but I've read what they wrote and it seems to me it's more about distinguishing between the idea of "expertise" and "authority." It's definitely along the right track, I think, but it's a little confusing, because the semantic range of "authority" to most people is pretty wide, which is why "authority" got used in this way by people like Chomsky and Bakunin in the first place.

the way i think about it is when authority as in "power over others" and authority as in "we should let this woman lead the 3-month project to build the community kitchen because she's successfully built 5 of them before" are are referred to by the same word it's easily to conflate them and say that that woman has "power over others".

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

This is what the vast majority of ancoms say anarchism is, parroting Chomsky's ideas:

https://old.reddit.com/r/BreadTube/comments/b46y38/the_altright_playbook_always_a_bigger_fish/ej8oaiq/

Thats a bit of an oversimplification of anarchism tbh, its much closer to ‘all hierarchies must be destroyed unless they can prove they are necessary’. Most real anarchists I know(myself included, anarcho syndicalist) do not want abolishment of all hierarchy, just most. Id say the average anarchist is more similar to an anarcho syndicalist which inherently has a hierarchy even if the hierarchy is shared throughout. This could just be personal anecdotes though but I do rarely see anyone on the complete anarchy end.

This is my response to this rhetoric, including to Bakunin's cobbler analogy:

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ziq-anarchy-vs-archy-no-justified-authority

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lori wrote

the average anarchist is more similar to an anarcho syndicalist which inherently has a hierarchy

What the fuck kind of anarcho-syndicalism is that? Do Reddit anarchists just make shit up as they go?

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

The most popular youtube videos that explain anarchism all parrot chomsky in saying anarchism means we have to examine all authority / hierarchy and choose which ones to justify and which ones to reject. All the anarchist forums except this one overwhelmingly define anarchism the same way. It's not surprising that this is now the popular narrative.

If you keep telling people that anarchism means justifying hierarchy, of course an entire generation of anarchists are going to think that's what anarchism is. And trying to break that misconception is near impossible. I've tried so many times.

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lori wrote (edited )

Amazing. It feels like media published on corporate platforms have done the impossible and finally coopted anarchism itself into a harmless, commodified form. Crowdsourced propaganda.

"Anarchism" now includes clauses that allow rulers to continue a moderated rule, and praxis can be as simple as campaigning for Bernie Sanders. What's the point of it beyond being a quirky label you can use to describe yourself, at this rate? Is it just a way for people to avoid the dirty reputation of MLs whilst pursuing the same goal?

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

Yeah, I think so. I think a lot of these people don't want to be associated with Stalinism because it's so offensive to liberals (appeasing liberals is very important to them), but they really want a polite, more democratic and inclusive (e.g. queer-friendly) version of Stalinism that strikes words like 'state', 'party', 'prison' and 'police' out and renames them to something nicer-sounding.

They don't really want to be embrace anarchy because it scares the shit out of them not having a state and a police-force to protect them from bad guys. I think especially white middle class people have a hard time embracing a world where they have to take responsibility for themselves and their community rather than have an external body acting as a security blanket. Obviously a security blanket isn't going to protect you from being murdered, but it makes them feel warm and safe for some reason.

I think a lot of them (especially the ones on breadtube and completeanarchy) are just social democrats or demsocs at best.

North Americans and Europeans are incredibly sheltered by their states. Their states will ransack the rest of the world to give them special privileges and luxuries, and so when they choose their 'radical' ideology, they'll always gravitate to something that will maintain that privilege. They don't want to hear that they'll have to make sacrifices in the name of egalitarianism, self-sufficiency and equality, they want to hear that they'll get to keep everything the state hands them on a platter now but with extra sprinkles.

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93Nr3Y6KWJ2tC3 wrote

2 months ago

2 points

All ancoms believe in meritocracy and they keep strawmanning everyone ! 11 1 1!

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

I can give plenty more examples if I have to, account with 3 low effort comments.

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93Nr3Y6KWJ2tC3 wrote

just because they post on r/anarchism doesn't mean they are ancoms, scummy manipulative admin account

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ziq OP wrote

Them telling people to read Kropotkin / The Bread Book and discussing how labor would be organized in an "anarcho-syndicalist world" and pining for Catalonia and explaining that the term 'libertarian' is owned by anarcho-communists means they're an ancom.

And this is the ancom motto at this point:

That isn't true. A hierarchy exists between you and a surgeon operating on you. A hierarchy exists between your piano teacher and you. If you and a few friends work on a project and elect the most competent among you to lead the direction of the project a hierarchy exists.

These are justified hierachies. Authority has a burden of proof to justify itself and in these cases and many others that burden of proof is met/can be met.

Anarchism isn't about abolishing all hierarchies, its about abolishing unjustified hierarchies.

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93Nr3Y6KWJ2tC3 wrote

This is what I mean. You proved that the one person is an ancom. Your original post claimed it was inherent to being an ancom. That is some extra dishonesty. Yes some ancoms think that and yes they're wrong. Merit is heavily criticized by ancoms and the justified hierarchy meme is almost only used against people who think anarchism is when you dont stop your 5 yo from doing crack.

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ziq OP wrote

Your original post claimed it was inherent to being an ancom

I claimed no such thing, all I changed was the title that said "no, ancoms, meritocracy is not anarchy". It's addressed to any ancom that thinks meritocracy is anarchy. I don't need to address it to other anarchists because I've only ever seen ancoms / synds make that argument.

the justified hierarchy meme is almost only used against people who think anarchism is when you dont stop your 5 yo from doing crack.

Idk what that means. I've seen thousands of ancoms promote "justified hierarchy / authority".

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93Nr3Y6KWJ2tC3 wrote (edited )

I mean the whole concept of justified hierarchy is mostly undefined. Lets go with the surgeon example. I dont think a surgeon has hierarchy over you if you agree to them operating on you. I'd only call it hierarchy if the surgeon operated on you against your will because they are more qualified to say whether you need it. Same with parenting except the child's consent is assumed. It would be hierarchy if the child grew up and then expressed their will to starve to death but was forcefully fed.

I feel like you are presenting that as the justified hierarchy ancoms believe in. I believe they just wrongly call things hierarchies. I doubt any ancom would agree with one of my examples of actual hierarchies

Edit: removed the word "justified" from one place because it made ziq think i support eugenics

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[deleted] wrote (edited )

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93Nr3Y6KWJ2tC3 wrote

I agree, I just said they wrongly call it hierarchy. I believe they are against all hierarchies but for some reason call non-hierarchies justified hierarchies which they should stop. I feel like ziq fell for what you described thinking ancoms actually support hierarchies.

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ziq OP wrote

I'd only call it justified hierarchy if the surgeon operated on you against your will because they are more qualified to say whether you need it.

Not sure how someone cutting you open against your will can be "justified", but yes, that's what ancoms will claim, and I don't. It's authority and it's not justified. Their skill doesn't give them the right to violate my wishes or my bodily autonomy. If I don't want someone to operate on me, tough luck. Even if it means I'll die, it's my decision.

The moment you start justifying authority like you're already doing with this example, you've stopped caring about anarchy. You're proving my point for me. It starts with "parents should have authority over their children" and before you know it you're making excuses to permit violating an adult's body.

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93Nr3Y6KWJ2tC3 wrote

what the fuck? I am against that. I am saying ancoms call non-hierarchies "justified hierarchies" and gave an example of something that could actually be defined as "justified hierarchy". I don't think it is justified. I don't think ancoms think it's justified. I think they just have shitty, unclear naming conventions. Someone cutting you open with your consent isn't even a hierarchy so you can't call it "justified hierarchy" which ancoms do and I think thats bad. From what you're saying it looks like ancoms actually support cutting you open against your will which they dont

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celebratedrecluse wrote

if it is consensual, I think those hierarchies take a low priority on the "must destroy" list, at least. Of course, consent is manufactured, but with so many things to attack it is good to focus on the most egregious and fundamental problems, for example policing, the military, sexual abusers, segregation, deprivation of right to food/housing, etc

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hermit_dragon wrote

Very agree!

Meritocracy always has to be predicated first on a definition of 'merit' and who is doing the defining has been/will always be those with some axis of power. Un-learning the idea of merit has been core to un-learning ableism, racism, and all sorts of stigma in myself, toward myself, and toward others.

To the dominant society I inhabit, I have no 'merit' - or any merit I do have is rendered useless by my 'deficits'. To that world, I am nothing but unrealized potential, useless and worthless unless I overcome my deficits and live up to my potential for merit. My lack of merit justifies withdrawing or refusing support, denying me the ability to live and be fully and freely. Fuck merit.

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ziq OP wrote

I'm changing the title so people don't fixate on it and on whether or not there are ancoms who believe in meritocracy. I've seen enough of them fetishizing meritocracy to know it's a problem, but if other people haven't had that experience, nothing I say is going to convince them.

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