In Democracy and its Critics, Robert Dahl (“Dahl”) presented the irreconcilable differences between democracy and meritocracy. The ideology of meritocracy dates back to the ancient Greek era. Philosopher King Plato defines meritocracy as a political regime composed of political leaders selected based on their superior ability, and they are then granted the power to rule accordingly. Dahl further elaborates in his article, as opposed to democracy, in meritocracy, only competent meritocrats, who are not subject to the democratic process have decision-making power. Meritocracy is thus deemed incompatible with democracy.

Notably, there are differences between meritocracy and guardianship. Yet, in the following discussion, the idea of meritocracy is presented as an ideology that shares the same definition as guardianship. Dahl also focuses his discussion on representative democracy in his article, under which politicians are elected by citizens representing citizens’ interests.

Meritocracy has continued to be influential in the history of political development. While the Demos challenge meritocracy’s feasibility in selecting suitable elites as political leaders, this paper proposes that theoretically, meritocracy poses a considerable challenge to democracy, as it can be said to avoid the inadequacies of democracy. This essay consists of the following
parts:

1. ) Addressing Demos’ challenge to meritocracy: Failure to select suitable elites as political leaders

2. )How can meritocracy avoid the deficiencies of democracy: Political incompetence of ordinary citizens

Addressing Demos’ challenge to meritocracy: Failure to select suitable elites as political leaders

The Demos and Aristos have no dispute over what qualities a political leader should possess. A political leader should be both morally and instrumentally competent. Moral competence means persons who have both moral understanding and virtue. Instrumental competence means the ability to achieve good ends efficiently and effectively.

Dahl challenges the practicality of meritocracy on its feasibility to select capable elites. As far as moral competence is concerned, the Demos believe that there can be no objective standard for moral knowledge. Though able to cultivate, moral understanding can hardly be acquired objectively. Similarly, the requirement for instrumental competence encounters difficulty, as mere expertise is not sufficient for policy-making. On top of empirical knowledge, moral judgment is of equal importance in policy-making. Such that political decisions usually require rulers to strike a balance between future and present needs, mere instrumental knowledge can hardly help rulers find their way out.

Rebutting the Demos’ challenge

The Demos’ challenge can be boiled down to one major issue: The inability to select an elite that is able to provide us with moral decisions. Plausible as it may seem, what meritocracy concerns is not choosing the most competent person as our political leader; instead, a good enough leader would suffice. Meritocracy merely warrants
(1) above average ability from the political leaders
(2) an institutionalized selection mechanism.

Qualities of a chosen political leader

It is of utmost importance that leaders with above-average ability are selected to make morally informed political decisions. Understandably, the Demos argue for the lack of objectivity in determining one’s moral standard; however, they conveniently overlook the fact that there can be an objective standard for a relative moral standard.

Over centuries, political thinkers failed to reconcile their differences on how to define merit and establish political practices based on it thereafter. While there is indisputable difficulty in actively selecting the most competent political leader, the method of eliminating negative qualities ensures that a political leader with more than average ability is selected. With this rationale in mind, the system developed by Singapore provides us with a considerable reference value.

Singapore is a country that practices meritocracy. They ensure that political elites who are above average are selected based on the system of deselection. That the Singaporean government values clean governance and thus being corruption-free tops their list in terms of political virtue. Instead of actively assessing potential rulers’ political virtue, leaders will be deselected if they are found to be corrupt. Such a deselection process is needed so as to institutionalize the selection of non-corrupt and highly intelligent leaders. The deselection mechanism is a successful attempt in keeping the number of corrupt officials low, such that the 2016 Corruption Perceptions Index showed that Singapore is the seven least corrupt nation out of 175 countries assessed by Transparency International.

Predictably, challenges may arise as to how to determine a set of suitable criteria for deselection. Understandably, it is impossible to develop a set of deselection criteria that is favored by all citizens, therefore deselection criteria should be flexible one that corresponds to the expectation of citizens. It is thus sufficient that the deselection criteria embody the factor that is most desired by citizens. Taking Singapore as an example, having a clean government is the criteria that are prioritized by Singapore citizens, such preference allows the selection of a desirable political leader ascertainable.

Moreover, it is important that the dominating deselection criteria changes as citizens’ preferences change with time. Such that with citizens’ preference in mind, Singapore’s deselection criteria is a flexible one that corresponds to citizens’ preferences. There are observable trends of citizens’ increase in demand for political participation. Therefore, in view of the need for a more caring outlook, the Singaporean government developed the concept of “compassionate meritocracy”, emphasizing the importance of meritocratically selected leaders yet at the same time loosening political suppression and allowing room for freedom of political speech.

An institutionalized selection mechanism

Through an institutionalized selection mechanism may not be effective in maintaining an objective standard for one’s moral standard or a standard that is desired by all citizens, it is still essential in avoiding abuse by hypocrites.

Imperial China is one of the pioneers in the development of meritocracy. In the course of its development, Confucius recognized the potential risk of abusing the definition of merits by hypocrites in the selection of the desired elite. In response to such risk, they developed a civil service examination, an exam though incapable of setting an objective standard in assessing one’s moral knowledge, it can at least deselect people who are incapable and immoral. Disregarding the potential flaws of the system, it did ensure there exists a minimum standard for talent selection and allowed room for the possibility of social circulation, resulting in a good enough political ruler.

How can meritocracy avoid the deficiencies of democracy?

The deficiencies of democracy

As defined above, representative democracy involves the participation of citizens in choosing their desired political leaders that can represent them in the political system. The participation of citizens exposes one major deficiency of democracy - ordinary citizens’ lack of political competence. Ordinary citizens

1) misunderstand their own interests
2) fail to take into account the general will.

Misunderstanding of one’s own interests

Schumpeter and Bryan Caplan both argue that voters are irrational in nature and this explains the observable trend of voters misunderstanding their own interests. Such that in face of asymmetrical information, irrational voters merely accept them with blind faith and act accordingly. Such that voters intrinsically suffer from an array of biases, one of which is anti-foreign bias. Under the influence of anti-foreign bias, voters overlook the benefits of cooperating with foreign countries, they even see foreign countries as their own economic competition and thus oppose free trade with them. As a result, voters opt for politicians that are against free trade, such a choice might be detrimental to the countries’ economic development.

Furthermore, the problem of blind faith in irrational voters contributes to the failure of democracy in two ways

1) voters would attribute responsibility to scapegoats for social problems and support politicians that irrationally persecute them;
2) politicians would conceal problems in society.

A political atmosphere with an abundance of irrationality would eventually lead to the formulation of irrational policies that disregard the need to resolve both short term and long-term problems. Such that as voters blindly believe that job creation is necessary for economic growth, politicians who promise job creation are selected. However, the mere policy of job creation, in fact, fails to promote economic growth, unemployment might be a signal of a saturated market, instead of blindly creating jobs, conserving labor for development in other fields would be a more desired approach.

Failure to take into account the general will

In Rousseau's attempt to argue for the common good, he contends that the idea of general will exists - an idea that asks individuals what is best for the community. Simple as this may seem, most people lack the understanding of their own interests and needs, let alone the interest of the community. In face of the American debt crisis, a typical voter believes that reducing discretionary spending, yet preserving Social Security and Medicare programs would be an ideal approach. Tax hikes are also objected to by the majority of the citizens. Lamentably, what the voters desire is the complete opposite of reality. Discretionary spending in fact only comprises $14 trillion of the national debt, what America really needs is an increase in tax revenues and cutting down expensive social programs. The vast discrepancy between voters’ expectations and reality serves as a good example of illustrating how ignorant citizens are when it comes to the community’s interests.

Worse still, voters simply do not see other’s interests as a factor for consideration. The not in my backyard mentality is very common, most citizens, if not all, fail to consider the collective good when making a political decisions. A case in point would be the problem of public housing construction in Hong Kong. Despite having over two hundred thousands applicants for public housing, the Hong Kong government still failed to choose a suitable district for public housing construction. Such failure is caused by the opposition from residents of the chosen district followed by district councilors safeguarding the interest of their voters in the Legislative Council. Residents of the chosen district fear that the construction of public housing would lower the property price of their district. To legitimize such selfish thoughts, district councilors candy coat it with the excuse of the need to look into comprehensive district planning, and district like Hung Hom that mainly consists of private housing is deemed incompatible for public housing construction.

Moreover, present material interest usually tops the list of individual voters, disregarding the needs of future generations or outside national boundaries stakeholders. Such that in a survey, most American voters believe that the government spends around 10% of the government’s budget on foreign aid, yet in reality, the US government merely spends 1% of their budget on foreign aid. The inflated effort of the US government due to ignorance seems unimportant, however, such ignorance leads to misjudgments by voters. American voters' belief vein their government’s high contribution lead them into supporting proposals that proposes a cut in foreign aid. With cuts in foreign aid, aid receiving countries might be another step closer to poverty.

Unsurprisingly, such a phenomenon leads to disastrous consequences. In pursuing one’s own economic interest in the course of voting, the needs and perspectives of non-voters are compromised due to a lack of representation. More often than not, the interests of underrepresented environmentalists are compromised in face of the majority votes. In the USA, though citizens recognized the need to apportion the federal budget to saving the environment, 58% of the surveyed republicans still take the view that environmental regulations are detrimental to the US economy and lead to job loss. Such a trend leads to Jason Brennan’s proposition that voters should not vote if they are unable to make morally informed political judgments. Uninformed voters would simply opt for the most emotionally appealing alternative and such a choice is said to be immoral and irrational.

How can meritocracy avoid the flaws of democracy?

The major flaw of democracy is the participation of incompetent ordinary citizens and meritocracy avoids such flaws simply by keeping ignorant citizens away.

With the practice of meritocracy, a minority with superior knowledge and virtue can be selected and possess the political competence to rule. Unlike moral understanding, one’s instrumental skills and knowledge can be cultivated. The instrumental skills possessed by the elites are necessary for the process of policymaking. Expertise is needed to evaluate viable policy options. Such that with elites in power, the Singaporean government successfully maintained stunning economic growth since its independence and thus gained the trust from its people.

Though ordinary rulers may consult experts in the course of decision-making, ordinary rulers normally have their own stance, their own stance renders it difficult for them to disregard their own viewpoints and merely rely on experts’ opinions in decision-making.

The selected meritocrats are specialists when it comes to governing, such specialization in the art of governing is effective in overcoming the incompetence of ordinary citizens to a certain degree. With rigorous training, meritocrats can better evaluate policy options and make sound decisions. The Demos may raise concern over the problem of irrationality that elites too as human beings might suffer from. However, rationality can in fact be gained through experience and external sources. Through constant practice, one can gain better judgment and an elite is the one that possesses an above-average ability to judge. Understandably, there are no jacks of all trades, elites can only strive to become more competent than an ordinary ruler, yet not the most competent in all areas.

Inability to promote democratic values

Predictably, the Demos may argue that democracy, though with the deficiency of involving incompetent citizens, celebrates the value of self-right and determination. Meritocracy though does not promote self-determination, as Dahl puts forward in his article, there are shared assumptions between meritocracy and democracy. The shared assumptions allow meritocracy to embody some core values of democracy yet at the same ensure that elites are the ones granted political power.

There are three shared assumptions between meritocracy and democracy, one of which is that both ideologies stress the importance of giving equal consideration to the interests of all human beings. Both ideologies treat equal treatment as their basic moral axiom. Similar to democracy, meritocracy also pay heeds to the needs of citizens, appealing to the majority, but yet considers minority rights as well. Appealing to the citizens is important in meritocracy since trust from citizens is essential to political stability. Such a rationale though failed to promote self-right and determination, still to a certain extent ensures that meritocracy has a similar moral underpinning as democracy and that overlooking citizens’ views and abuse of power by elites is not meritocracy’s desired outcome.

On top of that, arguably the moral right to have a say in political issues that affect you, in reality, is not a fair practice. Equity is not equality, though democracy promotes self-determination, democracy might not necessarily be promoting such value in a fairway. In fact, the extent of an individual being affected differs in every case, for the sake of fairness, does that mean citizens who are being affected to a larger extent should bear votes that carry more weight? Yet, in reality, present democracy has the practice of “one person, one vote”, such practice fails to ensure that everyone has a fair say in certain political decisions. Moreover, it is almost impossible to accurately measure the extent an individual is affected by a particular issue. Therefore, as a result, democracy essentially leads to the phenomenon of the majority imposing their will on the minority based on their self-interest.

So What?

Understandably, democracy has its own merits and it is thus impossible to argue that meritocracy completely knock-down democracy. Yet, there can hardly be a pure meritocratic political system in reality as advocated by the founding fathers of “liberal elitists” John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville. In reality, there are even an array of difficulties when it comes to establishing a purely meritocratic political system, as many fear the problem of class legislation. The problem of a class of people being in control of the political process without checks and balances from the political process is to be avoided. Therefore “liberal elitists” like John Stuart Mill actively propose the possibility of combining meritocracy and democracy, such as by giving educated citizens more votes in the hope of minimizing the potential risk of a pure form of meritocracy. The possibility of establishing a hybrid political system provides much insight for us in investigating the viability of meritocracy, yet such insight is not the focus of this current essay.

In illustrating how meritocracy achieves good results, this essay mainly relied on the successful example of Singapore. The lack of generality in these examples should be acknowledged. That said, the successful examples of Singapore still assist this essay in illustrating the case that meritocracy poses a considerable challenge to democracy, as empirical evidence showed that meritocracy can lead to national development and theoretically it can said to avoid the inadequacies of democracy - incompetent ordinary citizens.