What is a Meritocracy? & Merit-Based Immigration | Good-to-Know Business English

Описание: What is a Meritocracy? This word is used a lot in English politics, and if you want to immigrate to an English-speaking country, it is a good-to-know term. In this lesson, you will also learn what merit means, as well as what a merit-based immigration system is.

Do a good job and you succeed. Do a bad job and you fail.

It’s a simple idea. Yet many places in the world don’t work that way.

Now, America doesn’t always work like that. There’s still class division, in-group preferences, family preferences, politics, and in rare cases, some racism.

However America has worked that way a lot more than many other places. Because merit is part of the national conversation.

In a meritocracy, A person earns merit when they do productive or valuable things. They earn it when they show valuable personality traits like trust, productivity, or honor. This merit builds up like money a bank account, and over time the people with the most merit end up in better positions.

You don’t want to put the person who can’t do anything in charge, do you? You may see things like this at work. And when someone ends up in charge who has less merit than everybody else, you tend to not respect that person very much.

Meritocracy affects you too. Many people in American government want an immigration policy based on Merit. Who is going to bring money to our country, and jobs. Who is going to avoid criminal activity and bring us a lot of money. Who is intelligent? Who is going to share our values? And did I ask, who is going to bring us a lot of money?

Right now, in America it is the Conservatives who want a meritocracy. They don’t hate immigration, they just hate what they think is bad immigration… immigration that will increase crime and take jobs from the host country’s citizens.

This idea exists in many countries, from parts of the British commonwealth to Switzerland. You notice that these areas tend to be very rich nations. Now, are they rich because they have a meritocracy? Or do they have a meritocracy because they are rich? I’ll let you think about it.

Meritocracies aren’t perfect. There is no way to create a 100% meritocracy, even if everyone started their lives with 0 money and 0 family and 0 skills. It is important to remember that sometimes people just get lucky or unlucky. However, there is no arguing that work, good character, social skills, and excellence can still improve your position in life, compared to ignoring all of those things.

So now you know that countries and organizations can run on a merit-based system or a meritocracy? Have you seen a meritocracy in your life? Have you seen non-meritocracies? Tell me about it in the comments.

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