Editing Meritocracy (section)

===20th century to today===
[[Singapore]] describes meritocracy as one of its official guiding principles for domestic public policy formulation, placing emphasis on academic credentials as objective measures of merit.<ref>[http://app.mfa.gov.sg/data/paris/statements/REMARKS_FOR_MEDEF_28_Aug_08.html Speech by Singapore Ambassador to France], 28 August 2008. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120302193448/http://app.mfa.gov.sg/data/paris/statements/REMARKS_FOR_MEDEF_28_Aug_08.html|date=2 March 2012}}</ref>

There is criticism that, under this system, Singaporean society is being increasingly stratified and that an elite class is being created from a narrow segment of the population.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.littlespeck.com/content/politics/CTrendsPolitics-061028.htm|title=Singapore's elites|author=Ngiam Tong Dow|date=28 October 2006|publisher=Little Speck|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061101220026/http://www.littlespeck.com/content/politics/CTrendsPolitics-061028.htm|archive-date=1 November 2006|url-status=usurped}}</ref> Singapore has a growing level of tutoring for children,<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=http://www.wyomingfreelibrary.org/growing-trend-of-uplifting-education-business-in-singapore/|title=Growing trend of uplifting education business in Singapore|newspaper=Free Library and Tuition|access-date=2016-10-25|archive-date=25 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170425115339/http://www.wyomingfreelibrary.org/growing-trend-of-uplifting-education-business-in-singapore/|url-status=dead}}</ref> and top tutors are often paid better than school teachers.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://news.asiaone.com/news/education/1-billion-spent-tuition-one-year|title=$1 billion spent on tuition in one year|newspaper=AsiaOne|access-date=2016-10-25|archive-date=2 January 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170102190109/http://news.asiaone.com/news/education/1-billion-spent-tuition-one-year|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.epigami.sg/blog/2015-private-tuition-rates-singapore/|title=2015 Private Tuition Rates in Singapore {{!}} Epigami Blog|date=2015-01-21|newspaper=Epigami Blog|access-date=2016-10-25|language=en-US|archive-date=14 December 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161214193326/http://www.epigami.sg/blog/2015-private-tuition-rates-singapore/|url-status=dead}}</ref> Defenders of this system recall the ancient Chinese proverb "Wealth never survives past three [[Family name|generations]]" ({{zh|c=富不过三代}}), suggesting that the [[nepotism]] or [[cronyism]] of elitists eventually will be, and often are, limited by those lower down the hierarchy.

Singaporean academics are continuously re-examining the application of meritocracy as an ideological tool and how it's stretched to encompass the ruling party's objectives. Professor Kenneth Paul Tan at the [[Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy]] asserts that "meritocracy, in trying to 'isolate' merit by treating people with fundamentally unequal backgrounds as superficially the same, can be a practice that ignores and even conceals the real advantages and disadvantages that are unevenly distributed to different segments of an inherently unequal society, a practice that in fact perpetuates this fundamental inequality. In this way, those who are picked by meritocracy as having merit may already have enjoyed unfair advantages from the very beginning, ignored according to the principle of nondiscrimination".<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Tan|first1=Kenneth Paul|date=January 2008|title=Meritocracy and Elitism in a Global City: Ideological Shifts in Singapore|journal=International Political Science Review|volume=29|issue=7–27|pages=7–27|doi=10.1177/0192512107083445|s2cid=143983490}}</ref>

How meritocracy in the Singaporean context relates to the application of [[pragmatism]] as an ideological device, which combines strict adherence to market principles ''without'' any aversion to social engineering and little propensity for classical social [[welfarism]],<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/04/16/how-singapore-is-fixing-its-meritocracy/|title=Opinion {{!}} How Singapore is fixing its meritocracy|newspaper=Washington Post|access-date=2017-09-14|archive-date=14 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170914173017/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/04/16/how-singapore-is-fixing-its-meritocracy/|url-status=live}}</ref> is further illustrated by Kenneth Paul Tan in subsequent articles:

<blockquote>There is a strong ideological quality in Singapore's pragmatism, and a strongly pragmatic quality in ideological negotiations within the dynamics of hegemony. In this complex relationship, the combination of ideological and pragmatic maneuvering over the decades has resulted in the historical dominance of government by the [[People's Action Party|PAP]] in partnership with global capital whose interests have been advanced without much reservation.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Tan|first1=Kenneth Paul|date=9 December 2011|title=The Ideology of Pragmatism: Neo-liberal Globalisation and Political Authoritarianism in Singapore|journal=Journal of Contemporary Asia|volume=42|issue=1|pages=67–92|doi=10.1080/00472336.2012.634644|s2cid=56236985}}</ref></blockquote>Within the [[Ecuador]]ian Ministry of Labor, the Ecuadorian Meritocracy Institute<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20130305014509/http://www.meritocracia.gob.ec/ Web page of "Instituto Nacional de Meritocracia de Ecuador"]}}, 12 March 2013.</ref> was created under the technical advice of the [[Singapore]]an government.

With similar objections, [[John Rawls]] rejects the ideal of meritocracy as well.<ref>{{Cite book|title=[[A Theory of Justice]]|last=Rawls|first=John|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=1999|pages=91–92}}</ref>