Meritarian

In the allocation of rewards, several competing theories arise as to what is a just form of allocation. A Meritarian is a proponent of entitlement by merit, or of a Meritocratic system of reward allocation. The term "Meritarian" is of recent coinage from social and political philosophy, where it is used as to describe the host of concerns and arguments against egalitarianism, utilitarianism and contractarianism [http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/Cavalier/80130/part2/sect10.html] that deal with just rewards. The term Meritocracy is the "root" word of Meritarian, and comes from Michael Young's possibly satirical 1958 book "The Rise of the Meritocracy".

The argument for meritarian distribution, resource allocation, and commutative justice is to reward people with success proportionate to their predispositions, talents, and abilities; instead of one in which class or need is the controlling factor. And that any other means is either unfair or unjust.

The Olympics provide a good example of proper reward for achievement, since one can have a terrible need for a gold medal (or the endorsements one would gain by winning it) but not receive one because their performance did not merit it (i.e. they lost). Not every scenario is so clean cut however, and Meritarians differ as to what defines a proper merit and the means of finding a just allocation for meritable achievement.

External links

* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,514207,00.html Down with Meritocracy] - Michael Young, author of the book that coined the term Meritocracy wrote an article on the subject a year before his death.