I am trying to understand the limitations and weaknesses of a system of complex human social hierarchical display based on reputation and accolades instead of the accumulation of wealth. Academia is one such example of a hierarchy based on reputation.
What are the weaknesses of such a system, such as failures to account for human adaptation and growth? Where are factors that are not in line with meritorious achievement and the scientific process? What changes could be made to improve the social system of a reputation based hierarchy?
This post is heavily abstract and conceptually framed in layperson terms. Feel free to rephrase and infer meaning. I am thinking about a distant science fiction future when accrued wealth is no longer an adequate form of human hierarchical display, and the benefits, frustrations, and failures of such a system.
What makes you think that any form of societal advancement exists within a hierarchical framework?
In fact, destruction of hierarchy not only improves individual social outcomes on the whole, but it improves desirable outcomes for systems, and it improves overall systemic resiliency as power/decision-making is distributed, not concentrated.
I would argue that any movement to enforce hierarchy “merit-based” or not, is inherently regressive.
The importance of hierarchy is cultural, but all social animals display hierarchy in some respect. Those that are driven to this ends are valid and need an outlet too. This isn’t political hierarchy it is social hierarchy, and the most complex social creature in the known universe. You and I are not going to like the full spectrum of reality in the complete picture, but that is the point. Reality is not simple or structured in some rigid binary.