Merit
Much like God who judges us based on our individual merit, a Just Society seeks to encourage merit in its citizens. Rewarding capability and results at all levels provides motivation for everyone to improve themselves and reach their full potential. It also provides vital feedback to underperformers since it clearly shows where they have fallen short and what they need to improve in the future.
This applies at all levels. Making decisions based on merit means giving a raise to a good worker but not a mediocre one, just as much as it means reelecting successful leaders while replacing those who perform poorly. Critically, it also applies to expectations of performance in a future role because a worker who does mediocre work but demonstrates excellent leadership skills may be a better choice for promotion than someone who does better work but lacks the leadership skills required for a supervisory role.
Conversely, prioritizing merit also requires the inevitable mistakes to be addressed reasonably. Mistakes can be a learning experience so the consequences should be measured, especially when those involved take responsibility for their actions and identify ways to improve. Similarly, when the wrong person is hired or promoted, the best path forward is to fire or demote the person, not to cover up the problem or promote the deadweight into a useless management position to save face.
Indeed, responsibility and honesty at all levels are essential enablers of merit. Merit-based systems produce exceptional results, but only when those trying to cheat the system are harshly punished and they are unable to escape the consequences of their actions. This requires a robust justice system to deal with serious offenders, as well as honest conversations with past employers and those around them to identify troublemakers before they can cause more damage.
Of course, the greatest danger to merit is bias. Humans are naturally biased in a variety of ways, and these biases can easily destroy a merit-based system. The most obvious bias is towards family, especially children, because it is very easy for family ties to cloud judgement and supersede merit. A similarly strong bias also exists with regards to friends who may be unfairly prioritized, and conversely personal dislikes can lead to people not being properly rewarded for their success. There are of course an infinite number of ways we fallible mortals can be biased, such as race, gender, seniority, height, birthplace, favorite sports team, and so on, so we must actively work to overcome these biases so merit can be properly rewarded. However, we must also be wary of the temptation to hand this problem over to a bureaucracy, because while its cold, unfeeling mechanisms may crush bias, a bureaucracy’s blindness to anything but numbers is also guaranteed to crush merit by forcing everyone into a rigid reward system.
Thus, as with so many things in our infinitely complex world, there are no perfect answers. The goals and dangers outlined here can provide guidance and wisdom, but we fallible mortals must always remain humble and acknowledge we will inevitably fall short. All we can do is our best. We should take responsibility for our failures, give forgiveness when good people make honest mistakes, work together to overcome evil, and pray to God for the wisdom to improve ourselves and the lives of those around us.