Equality of Opportunity VS Meritocracy

A few days ago I posed you a question via my various social media accounts.

I asked, 'what do you believe in above all else?' The responses I received were really interesting and interestingly, very similar. It made me think about what my 'not negotiable' values are. In the response of wikileaks and the millions of people who have recently demonstrated the importance that free speech plays in their lives, I wanted to figure out what cause or idea resonates the most in my life (and yours, hence the question).

I dismissed general slogans such as Freedom, Equality and Respect as they are obviously important and required ideals in any well functioning society but leave more questions than answers. They have so much grey, so many caveats that they make me uncomfortable.

After much consideration, and like many of you, I couldn't pinpoint one single ideal but rather I settled on two - Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy.

Meritocracy is very important to me. It is the idea that reward is given to the person who is most deserving of it. Meritocracy would not allow Prince Charles to rule Britain (and Australia for that matter) purely because of his blood line. It would not allow Sarah Palin to be a potential presidential candidate because of popularity alone. We would ask, ‘is this the best person to do that job?’ I put to you that in both examples above, the answer is no. In fact, in Prince Charles’ case, meritocracy would challenge the very idea of monarchy itself.

In a society ruled by meritocracy in its purest form, where you end up is determined by your ability alone. That seems fair to me. But as you are no doubt now saying to yourselves, 'what is the point of meritocracy if some people have an easier path than others? Of course their outcome will be better.' Quite right you are.

How can meritocracy exist when some people have access to great education and others have none at all? When some people can move passed illness or injury due to world class medical assistance and others are forever plagued with aliments that are easily treated in a more developed or prosperous environments. Surely here, meritocracy is meaningless.

If ability and ability alone determined outcome, as I believe it should, we would (and should) see far more minorities assuming positions of power and success. But we don't. We don't because meritocracy can only work when people start from the same point.

Enter, Equality of Opportunity. This is the idea that everyone is provided the same base from which to build their lives. That does not mean that everyone finishes the same way, like socialism for instance. It represents the idea that everyone is provided the same essential ingredients to succeed (education, health care, food, etc) and then it is up to them to do with that what they can. Some will invariably succeed and other will invariably not but their starting point would not be the determining factor.

Equality of opportunity would mean that all people, regardless of background, culture, language, sex, sexual preference, religion and any other variable you can think of, start the race from the same line.

That too seems fair to me....