Is the United States really a meritocracy or does the income inequality produce a hereditary privileged class

Question

(a) Allocating rewards irrespective of merit is a prerequisite for meritocracy, otherwise environments cannot be equalized;

(b) allocating rewards according to merit is a prerequisite for meritocracy, otherwise people cannot be stratified by wealth and status;

(c) therefore, a class-stratified meritocracy is impossible.

Answer 1

How about both. If you work hard and take risks you can succeed beyond your wildest dreams. Of course that success has produced many who have inherited wealth but better that my children and grandchildren benefit from my hard work than the government take the fruits of my labor.

Answer 2

Neither - the income gap is largely between younger, inexperienced workers and older, experienced workers - - - the difference between what high school classmates 30 years later make and what they all made 2-3 years out of high school dwarfs most of the differences among the classmates at any given time.

And additionally, there's the greed factor, which in a market actually helps - - - all that wealth held at the top isn't at anyone else's expense - - - it grows only because it is kept invested - - in the firms that hire the rest of us.

Answer 3

The Bush administration most definitely does not appoint posts based on merit.

The Justice Department's large scale of the hiring of Regent Law grads proves that- you could have slept through undergrad and got into Regent, you could likely sleep through Regent and get a law degree, these people were hired for loyalty and to make Kay James happy, whoo.

Michael Brown, proved also this point, with his complete inability to run FEMA.

Sometimes it seems as if his appointees were pulled out of a hat, but you bet some favors had to be called to get your name into the hat.

Answer 4

Considering the top 2% control 80% of our Nation's wealth might be some indicator.

Also, consider a CEOs salary (hundreds of thousands) to that of a public-school teacher's (about 40,000/yr)... there's a vast discrepency for ya.

Answer 5

Poor people seem to have a ton of power and force everyone else to pay high taxes while they often pay little or no tax.