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I get the feeling that people like Yglesias and Rawls publish crap that they know is wrong just in order to call attention to themselves. If they wrote what they--and everybody else--knew to be right, nobody would bother with it, but this way their names are put in front of us. "Look what this idiot said! Can you believe it?" etc. etc. Anything to stand out.

Where to start. While it's been 30 years and more since I read Rawls' A Theory of Justice carefully, and while I disagree strongly with much of what Rawls has to say, I think this article does not accurately characterize Rawls' argument from the original position.

The crux of Rawls' argument, IIRC, is that if we were setting up a system ex nihilo (in the original position) before we knew our place in society, our family, character or intelligence ('behind the veil of ignorance'), the only system we would all agree to would be one of fundamental equality that did not advantange anyone on the basis of wealth, family, character or intelligence.

I happen to think Rawls' point is fundamentally wrong, that even one who realized he might find himself less advantaged in real life, if setting up a system in the original position behind the veil of ignorance, might well agree to a system that advantaged talent, character or hard work. The difference is that Rawls posits no possibility of any transcendent morality that would reward individual behaviour -- that is he is fundamentally a collectivist and anti-Lockean. That is the popular approach in academic philosophy in the modern era, but I think fundamentally wrong. I participated in an interesting graduate philosophy seminar on Rawls and Nozick back in the '70s when both books were pretty new. I wanted to like Rawls less than I did and Nozick more than I did.

If meritocracy is an appalling ideal, then the idea that nobody is really responsible for anything is… what?

Nihilism, of course. That's also the ultimate problem with Sarte's existentialism, in which everyone is responsible for everything, which renders the concept of responsibilty meaningless and therefore the notion of holding anyone responsible (if other than a political convenience) is absurd.

Welcome to modern philosophy.

To hold that viewpoint requires a very extreme form of determinism--that one is compelled by one's genome and upbringing to be successful. The successful literally cannot do otherwise, just as the slothful have no choice. I wonder whether the exponents of that viewpoint actually hold it consistently: they would have no justification for taking anyone to court, e.g. for not living up to the terms of a contract--the other party couldn't do otherwise!

From each according to his ability, too each according to his needs.

That's one idea on how to organize society. It leads to the rule of the apparatchiks and, ultimately, falls apart because the talented object.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his ability.

It may not be just but it works. The most talented people end up doing the work for which they are best-suited...which is a pretty good start.

And what's just?

There's nothing wonderful about the untalented, the stupid, the ugly, the poor, the unfortunate. Simply put, there are huge numbers of such people and their wishes and welfare can be discounted only at great risk to a society. Our ideas of justice spring from that realization.

One of the problems with "merit" and "meritocracy" is that we lack a definition, and a lot of what we think we know is wrong.

I was a National "Merit" Scholar based on my Junior SATs of 1526.

I didn't "merit" sh*t. I was lazy, unfocused, and didn't do any work. Fortunately, my IQ was high enough that I could fake it.

Hopefully, I've made up for being a teenage assh*le in subsequent years.

However, giving me rewards for "merit" severly distorts the meaning of the word. Merit is what you deserve based on what you DO, not based on your genetics.