"Haters"
We like to think that those most successful in society are the ones who have achieved this by being smarter, more hardworking, more determined, and somehow "better" than the vast majority of citizens. Bezos, Musk, Gates, the list goes on. Geniuses, visionaries, iconoclasts, truth tellers, are some of the names we like to call them. Those who would criticize them are dubbed as lazy, close-minded, jealous, unsuccessful, "haters". The critics will say that these people obtained obscene wealth, and with it political power and cultural influence, via avarice, simply knowing how to play the game, having already come from a privileged position, and perhaps most damning of all, through government help. We can allow a mixture for both sides of supporters and critics.
Unmeritocratic Rise
But, if anyone pays the slightest attention to the context and innerworkings of the rise of these figures, the existence of pure meritocracy should be obviously false. For instance, Elon Musk was born into Apartheid South Africa, which heavily favors whites. Not only this, but his father owned an emerald mine. The biggest blow to his purely meritocratic rise is that he has received $5B in government subsidies. To take another figure, Bill Gates routinely stole competitor software, which helped Microsoft to grow into a software giant. He also took advantage of being able to outsource labor to developing nations where labor is cheaper and subject to weaker labor laws.
Coups for Minerals
In the bigger picture, those who rely primarily on the sale of software benefit from foreign policy which allows for labor exploitation in third world countries; this is how precious metals for computer components are routinely obtained. These companies eventually derive super-profits from cheaply obtained minerals buttressed further by cheap to-near slave labor. Not only that but, back home in the states, the workers for these companies are underpaid and unionization is routinely thwarted, thereby further enriching the shareholders. This simultaneously transfers more power to the shareholders and disempowers the workers who make the product. Workers are further wed to their low wage jobs due to "affordable" health insurance being tied to employment. Lengthy mortgages and obscenely priced real-estate also make the notion of changing jobs or unionizing a fete deemed too precarious for many.
Uncle Sam Wants Dark Money
On the government level, anti-trust laws are weakened or made practically ineffectual by government officials who do not have the slightest interest (or are legally bribed) in preventing monopoly, thereby smaller competitors are forced to sell as they simply can't compete (though of course exceptions exist). The political influence of industry leaders grows to an enormous proportion as they donate untold sums (via "dark money", cf. Citizens United vs. FEC) to elect their choice candidates on the local and national levels, even stretching into the SCOTUS. Legislators are also influenced by these companies to reduce corporate taxes, further enriching them.
The Choices we are Given
The products of these companies are sold to a consumer-driven society where the illusion of choice is given, but due to monopoly, not many choices actually abound. Further, a media oligarchy runs stories about the success of tech geniuses and how they are saving the world over with their dazzling visions and vast sums of money. So goes the ecosystem in which these private sector leaders' influence is melded with the public sector in a symbiotic relationship.
Bureaucrats are not Useless
To the title of this post, what purpose does the myth of pure meritocracy serve? If we believe in this myth, then we ignore the various linkages of a capitalist economy in which private and public sectors feed into one another, not primarily for the common public good, but for industry and political elites. Especially industry elites are see as "other" and the public is simply privileged to be alive at a time where they can partake and be whisked along by the captivating visions of these figures. We also tend to expect less from government. Intuitively, we know that government should help citizens, but practically we know that this is not the case. They are viewed largely as useless bureaucrats who do something for the citizenry every once in a while, or when a crisis occurs. But underneath it all, these officials are working very hard, just not for the citizenry. They work had to privatize public works, weaken labor laws, foment coups where precious metals are abundant, etc.
Prisons: Give us Your Poor
One of the more tragic outcomes of the myth of meritocracy is demonization of the poor. You are poor because you haven't worked hard or smart enough. This eventually leads to the criminalization of the native poor and refugee alike. And if they are criminalized, they can be jailed, where dirt cheap prison labor can be extracted from them. Their imprisonment follows them for the rest of their lives, making it almost impossible for them to obtain future employment in anything other than poverty wage jobs, thereby setting the stage for potential recidivism. Prison also tends to make people more violent and is scientifically proven to not be rehabilitative. This poverty-to-prison pipeline is why being poor often becomes endemic and generational. And again, there exists a media apparatus which focuses on petty theft and shoplifting, rather than highlighting the obscenely monied police state whose function is to largely criminalize the poor. And the citizenry consumes this propaganda, often moralizing poverty or being a refugee from a war-torn country; character flaws are surely the central cause of people mired in and ravaged by poverty. "Go fight corruption in your own country." is a common quip against refugees, not realizing that US foreign policy directly destabilizes these nations.
The Unworthiness of Workers
For the working class, the myth of pure meritocracy imbues their collective psyche with a kind of malaise which convinces them that they are not worthy to have a larger share in the profits of the shareholders. If someone raises the question of why workers don't democratically share in company profits and decisions, a propagandized worker will quip that they should just be happy to have a job and that we couldn't possibly begin to fathom the innerworkings of a successful company, like the CEO does. Labor efforts persists and unionization occurs, but instances are few and far in between, with labor union membership sharply declining since the 1970's. The citizenry attempts and at times succeeds to pursue entrepreneurial enterprises, but often they end up becoming the same exploitative CEO mentioned previously. So this myth persists and works it's way into every part of society (cf. Marx's idea of reification). This feeds back into this loop whereby the next "tech star" or business mogul is propped up as a consequence of purely meritocratic system.
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