Cognitive Competition and Meritocracy

SYNOPSIS:  A perception-based economic system spawns an image-based social hierarchy.

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If all we personally had to deal with in the economic arena were confusion about which consumer products to choose, our position might not be substantially different from that of townsfolk at an old-style medicine show.  But since today we tend to work for corporations as well as buy merchandise from them, a good deal more is affected by a slackening in the competitive pace than our ability to get good value for our money in deodorant or floor wax. 

Ultimately, a degradation in the quality of competition among corporations precipitates a corresponding deterioration in the quality of competition within them, for jobs and career advancement. This is because when a corporation no longer faces rigorous, meaningful marketplace discipline, it is no longer required to make particularly efficient (which translates as “fair”) use of its human resources.

 

More Specifics

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	The contemporary workplace doesn't provide many safeguards against managerial foibles.
	Traditional beliefs in business fairness and efficiency were based on the presumption of a knowledgeable marketplace.
	With marketplace judgment undermined, internal competition within businesses has slipped its morrings.

(c) COPYRIGHT 1994 ROBERT WINTER.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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