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Notes -
What if our fundamentals are exactly backwards?
New to The Motte, looking for constructive, critical discussion.
Here's an example of what I mean by a "fundamental":
Every economic system that has seemed credible to most people since the dawn of civilization has revolved around the legal establishment and safeguarding of property through the concept of ownership.
But what is ownership? I have my own ideas, but I asked ChatGPT and was surprised that it pretty much hit the nail on the head: the definitional characteristic of ownership is the legal right to deprive others.
This has been such a consistently universal view that very few people question it. Even fewer have thought through a cogent alternative. Most people go slack-jawed at the suggestion that an alternative is possible.
Here's something from years back, before I'd zeroed in on the perverse nature of ownership:
Anyone want to brainstorm a viable alternative to "ownership"?
/images/17459352527399495.webp
An alternative is unlikely unless we solve scarcity emotions using technology and/or massive shock-driven consciousness changes like in Star Trek (hyper-advanced tech and WW3). Basic mammal nature in the presence of scarcity is to priviledge oneself, one's family, and one's friends over others. This usually only fails to hold true in the presence of extremely powerful emotional ideological or political forces like nationalism (where one emotionally feels like the entire nation is one's family) or political authoritarianism (where you are forced to fight for the government because they will hurt you and maybe your loved ones if you don't). And those have their own negative consequences.
Communism could work if we were all near-constantly on an MDMA trip type of immediate feelings of love, but I'm not sure that the average human is even physically capable of being like that without some of the hardware burning out. Some spiritual teachers have claimed that they have gotten there without drugs, but whether or not they are telling the truth, the fact is that clearly even if they did reach it, they have consistently failed to teach that state to anything more than a tiny fraction of the human population. Although I will say that, even by trying, they have probably helped humanity. Modern Western morality is much better than the morality of 2000 years ago, which was basically "tough shit if you're poor or crucified, I guess the gods don't like you lol".
All that said, I do find it funny that most modern proponents of meritocracy do not challenge what is probably the biggest modern source of un-meritocracy in the West, which is inheritance. Even the most wild-eyed free market libertarian who advocates for pure meritocracy typically does not call for all humans to be put on a truly level playing field, which could only be done by forbidding parents to pass on their wealth to their children. And the truth is that, whatever you think about passing on wealth to children, all meritocratic ideologies that accept inheritance are at best just nipping around the edges, and not addressing the biggest un-meritocratic phenomenon in the whole human world.
I do agree, in theory, that inheritance tax should be 100% - a dead man’s belongings is a far more legitimate source of funding for the state than a man’s salary. My dad’s money is not really my money, while my salary, or my stock gains, are. But I worry about the distortion – of course most people would then spend wildly and die with nothing, and nothing would be gained.
OP, you know, we have places for people like you. Communes. Go there and share, show up all the psycho squares. Jokes aside, I really think you should, it’s the nicest, most cooperative, failsafe, beneficial way to determine who’s right. Can’t break anything (except dreams) and it’s a fun adventure.
I do not support pure meritocracy or communism :) I am just pointing out a very common blind spot in many meritocracy supporters' views.
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