One commenter says that in Germany today civil service not to be based on merit is still a powerful idea. I do not think this is true at all. I am German and both of my parents are civil servants in Germany. The reasons why German civil service works well is that civil servants are extremely well paid and top talent is drawn into it. Many civil servants are barred by law from strikes, including all teachers, policemen and anyone in a bit higher position in administration. German civil service is very merit-based. Indeed even top politicians usually come from quite ordinary families: Schroeder’s mom was a single mom cleaning lady, Angela Merkel’s father was a pastor in east Germany and she is a physics PhD (unlike an Ivy undergrad degree, you cannot buy that one). Hiring into civil service is mostly based on centralized examinations and specialized exams. Just as an anecdote: A friend of mine, from an upper middle class family living in a cozy suburb full of professors, lawyers and doctors, after his Abitur with ok grades wanted to become a policeman (his grades roughly put him in the top 20% of the entire age cohort). He got rejected on basis of a minor knee condition he had (though he was still an athlete). That’s how selective they can be! The NYPD or any other US police agency, apart from the FBI maybe, can only dream of such applicants, let alone turn them away. Being a civil servant, say a high school teacher (Gymnasium) in Germany enjoys similar status to being an engineer, a lawyer or doctor. My father still recommends I rather become a German civil servant rather than, say a Wall Street banker or consultant.

that’s the key word, people.

I actually thought about saying something of the sort myself. I didn’t, in part because it was funnier just to make fun. I agree that it is an interesting question: the limits of the efficiency of meritocracy. But it is also true that Möser is not really asking the interesting question. He is trying to defend an extreme position by posturing as though the only alternative is an opposite sort of extreme (which, as you point out, would have its own problems.)

You know, every now and then I’ve idly wondered if you were related to those Emersons . . .

And are you aware of this? (see episode 7 of series 1 . . .)

I do love the very clear expression of the thought that assigning positions according to merit will lead to unending humiliations. This was a pretty common view, wasn’t it? That rigid hierarchy, having nothing to do with desert, was a recipe for both social and personal peace? If one knew one’s place, and could aspire to nothing else, one could just chill and learn to love the virtues, such as they are, of one’s station and its duties. God knows what he’s doing. Of course, leave some positions upon to extraordinary talent, but be sure not to get people’s hopes up. That would be too cruel.

Not as interesting as drowning infanticidal whores in sacks, though.