Fasces wrote:You have one job to fill, and you have 2 options.
Option A: Is poor, and brilliant. Will perform at incredibly high levels, innovate, and be a key team member for decades.
Option B: Is rich, but adequate. Will meet minimum standards, and hit benchmarks, but won't set the world alight.
You're going to sit here and with a straight face tell me that you would hire Option B?
Your analogy is obscuring the major issue that I was pointing out, and that is who pays for it.
Do you think society should preferentially give more opportunity to the brilliant, even though there may be plenty of other less brilliant and slightly less motivated people who are still perfectly capable of doing that job?
Your analogy of "meritocracy" is a false one, because it would be creating an artificial inequality.
Meritocracy, under a free market system, is where the people or private companies who pay for it are choosing the person for the job, through a combination of meritocracy and price.
What you seem to be suggesting, on the other hand, is a system where government chooses to make investments in people (for future work in the private sector) based on an extreme form of competition. Since this is taxpayer spending we are talking about, the same rules of meritocracy do not apply. (That is one of the basic tenants that any Libertarian philosopher would point out to you)
Now don't get me wrong or misunderstand, obviously there needs to be some level of meritocracy, they can't be giving out slots to persons who are totally unqualified, and probably half the population (or more) is just not cut out to be a doctor.
I'm just pointing out that a more moderate form of meritocracy should be used. Say, instead of only holding out the opportunity to the top 1 percent, the opportunity should be available to the top 20 percent, even though obviously not all of them will be able to get it.
This isn't an issue of who I, or even who we as a society want to hire. This is an issue of who is getting taxpayer money, a taxpayer-funded education.
In economic terms, I think you are viewing this all in terms of patients, rather than thinking about what is fair for the people who may want to be doctors also.
What this comes down to is an issue of choice of precise rationing allocation mechanism. Something that's always controversial in political economics.