Everybody Who Has More Than Me Claims They “Earned It”

I’ve come to believe the idea of “merit” is just another lie designed to justify exploitation

In grade school, the teacher used to post our test scores for everyone to see. I distinctly remember that every time I received a 100, somebody would yell, “Lucky!”

They never said, “Wow, you’re smart.”

They never said, “Wow, you must have studied hard.”

It was always just a matter of luck in their minds. I was “lucky,” they were “unlucky,” and I “deserved” to get a beating for it.

I mention this anecdote because it suggests that, in the absence of social conditioning, people aren’t inclined to even consider “merit.” In the absence of any other influence, most people interpret a situation in which they have less, and you have more as “unfair.”

That’s the default setting.

But when it comes to inequitable wealth distribution, this innate tendency to find fault seems to go out the window. In fact, all the kids who used to berate me for being “lucky” have grown into adults who are the first to defend the “merits” of wealth-hoarding billionaires.

I’ve made almost zero progress in my efforts to convince people they must denounce economic inequality. Therefore, I’ve decided to take a step back and attack the concept of merit itself.

How does our interpretation of history and culture change if we view it with the assumption that there is no such thing as merit? How do we perceive the challenges of our society differently if we define the concept of “merit” as nothing more than another lie deployed by oppressors to justify the exploitation of their fellow human beings?

The problem with competition

When I was in grade school, I went to a two-week summer camp. One day, the camp director made us arm wrestle for pieces of chocolate. You received a piece of chocolate for every match you won in a minute.

I was matched up with a kid who was stronger than me. We wrestled three times, and I lost all three. The camp director went around and handed out chocolate to the winners.

We she was done she asked, “Why did you compete? If you’d just taken turns ‘winning,’ you could have maximized your time and gotten 30 pieces of chocolate each.”

She wanted us to “cooperate” and take turns slamming our hands down on the table as fast as possible.

She was kind of smug about it, but the truth is that even in middle school, every kid has already been conditioned to compete. We already know that if we look for loopholes like the one she suggested, we were likely to be punished.

But stop and think about it for a minute. Doesn’t this example suggest that even the effort it takes to determine who is most “meritorious” ultimately costs the group as a whole? A contested match took 20 seconds, an intentional loss took less than one. Could it be that the act of determining merit itself is detrimental to a community?

Americans are trained to believe two things:

• Merit exists
• Merit should be rewarded

We should do our due diligence and question whether either of these ideas is true.

Does merit even exist?

Merit is just a polite way of saying, “some people better than others.” Well, do you believe that some people are “better” than others?

What happened to the idea of “all people are equal?”

History shows that whenever one group of people is designated as “better,” it doesn’t end well.

In order to appease the artificial need to designate merit, our society is filled with manufactured hierarchies of compensation.

For example, society has determined that NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers is worth just under 60 million dollars a year. Meanwhile, the pediatric surgeon who might save the life of your newborn baby is paid about 500K a year.

Therefore, American society believes that the quarterback who is tied for the most losses in NFC Championship games is worth roughly 120 times the value of the person who is called upon to save your baby’s life.

Any arguments?

Yes, I’m cherry-picking data

At this point, more than a few of you are muttering objections to my argument. That’s good! That shows that you have the ability to reason.

Now, I’d like you to apply that skepticism every time you hear arguments that defend the concept of merit. Come on now, be fair! If you’re going to attack the idea that “there is no merit,” you also have to be willing to attack the absurd historical arguments which have been used to fraudulently defend merit. Like this one:

“I get to have more wealth than you because I’ve been ordained by God to rule!”

The “divine right of kings” is something we’ve all probably heard about, but which we’ve been conditioned not to denounce. I’m guessing your teacher in high school didn’t say, “the royal family believed in the divine right of kings which was a stupid and offensive idea designed to oppress and exploit people.”

Nobody says that.

The divine right of kings is a LIE!

We should be saying that! The simple truth is that there’s no evidence whatsoever that some people have been “ordained by God” and that a divine power wants them to relax in luxury while you toil in misery. That doesn’t exist. That’s a lie.

Our society hasn’t done nearly enough to emphasize how offensive even the suggestion of “the divine right of kings” actually is.

I deserve more than you because I’m religious

At some point we have to take a step back and recognize that children are brutally punished unless they show an absurd and undeserved reverence for religious beliefs.

Based on many of the accepted definitions of “merit,” religious beliefs shouldn’t qualify for any special standing. However, religion is exempted from a lot of the rules we use to organize the rest of society.

“Lucky!”

In the United States, religion has historically been used as a “meritorious” argument to defend the institution of slavery. Here’s what Frederic Douglass had to say about that:

I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. Never was there a clearer case of “stealing the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in.” I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which every where surround me — Life of An American Slave, Frederick Douglass

It doesn’t take too much digging to uncover a hoard of blatant lies that have been used to fabricate justifications for blatant acts of exploitation.

There’s ample evidence that our whole society should be far more skeptical of the concept. But instead of discussing it, people stomp around nonsensically bleating that everyone who “has it better” somehow “deserves it.”

If you object to this assertion, you’re immediately shushed into silence.

Well, if it’s true that people “deserve” their wealth, why do they get so offended if you make them prove it?

Fabricating your argument of merit

Some people are scientific thinkers. They interpret observable phenomena and then draw their conclusions accordingly. Following this model, there might be some… well, merit to the concept of merit.

The inverse of that idea is to fabricate the evidence that supports the conclusion you prefer. I believe that’s the model that is in place in the modern world and which has led to widespread suffering.

Even people who go “tut-tut” when you offer criticisms to the concept of merit, will not themselves submit to a contest you design to determine who is the most meritorious. In many cases, they won’t even submit to a contest designed by a third party. Why should they? Once they’ve been established as the “most meritorious,” why should they risk any challenge to that crown?

Here’s an example:

“I deserve to be paid more than you!”

“On what grounds?”

“On the grounds that my skin is white and your skin is black!” Now, keep in mind history shows that this offensive argument has served as an acceptable proof of “merit” for centuries.

It’s a lie.

Claims of merit are often thinly disguised justifications for exploitation

Aaron Rodgers is protected by an offensive line. If those linemen don’t give him time to throw, Aaron Rodgers can’t win any games. If Aaron Rodgers doesn’t have a player who can catch, his precision passes mean nothing. If Aaron Rodgers doesn’t have a defense, his team will lose.

Based on that evidence, I don’t see how Aaron Rodgers deserves to be compensated more than any other player on his team. It’s a TEAM! They win together or they lose together. Everybody has to do his job.

A fancy pediatric surgeon might make 500K a year. However, the surgeon relies on a mechanic to keep his car in operating order. If the surgeon dies in a crash because the mechanic didn’t have access to the resources necessary to properly do his job, then the surgeon has paid a hefty cost for benefiting from an unjust system.

Every day we put our lives in the hands of hundreds of people. Tired pharmacists count out prescriptions. What happens if they put the wrong pills in your bottle? It’s somebody’s job to make sure the wings are properly attached to the airplane you’re flying around in. What’s keeping that oncoming car in his lane? If something rattles loose and the vehicle swerves into you… light’s out!

The problem with society is that we designate some jobs as “valuable” and some jobs as “unskilled.” The reality is that every single job that people do contributes to their health and well-being. Yet, some people are so poorly compensated that they’re forced to labor to exhaustion.

Exhausted people make mistakes

Aaron Rodgers makes multiple times the salary of the man who drives your child’s school bus. In fact, the bus driver is so broke he has to work the night shift at the local packing plant. Today, he’s asleep at the wheel.

Why is everybody in our society so content to pay an obscene amount of money to an “elite” few, even if it means putting our own children at risk?

Maybe if we paid everybody more, we wouldn’t have to pay the police so much?

Why don’t we recognize that inequitable wealth distribution is a threat to the health and happiness of the people we love?

Here’s my thought: Maybe if we stopped treating an elite few as if they were “ordained by God,” it would lead to greater satisfaction for our whole society.

Personally, I think that’s an idea that has some merit.

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