“Howard Lutnick gives top Cantor Fitzgerald jobs to his sons Brandon and Kyle” is a very clean example of meritocracy.

In a post about possible corruption in the government and finance sector, Paul Campos points to a news article entitled, “Howard Lutnick gives top Cantor Fitzgerald jobs to his sons Brandon and Kyle,” that features an adorable photo of the three Lutnicks standing next to a fashion model. Campos labels this as, “The Meritocracy!”, and clearly he’s being ironic: his point is that it seems unlikely that these two twenty-somethings are really the people with the most merit needed to run this zillion-dollar company. All things are possible, but it would be an amazing coincidence if, among all the possible financial executives out there, that these two would happen to be the best. And, sure, I get that. But now I want to point to my old post on the topic, Meritocracy won’t happen: The problem’s with the “ocracy.” The short version is that the news item, “Howard Lutnick gives top Cantor Fitzgerald jobs to his sons Brandon and Kyle,” is a very clean example of meritocracy. Lutnick Sr. had the…