Some may think that the concept here, especially the points system, is completely different from what is common practice today, but I will quickly point out that this is not the case at all. For decades we have been using grading systems that are natural to everyone and no one questions their legitimacy. They don't have to, because they work.
Let's take university entrance scores for a moment. These are intended to characterize, at least tangentially, the knowledge of the applicant, so that applicants can be more easily classified. The trouble starts when the bloody representatives of ideologies (usually politicians) decide that your father's party membership or, oh, my goodness, the color of your skin should count in the points system. (either in negative or positive form)
From then on, the whole meritocratic system, based on merit in your own right, is over, and in its place comes the cataclysm of negative and positive discrimination that undermines the credibility of education and indeed the whole social system. Neither is right. The only yardstick should be your years of hard work, nothing else. Either you can or you can't, and that will determine whether you are really capable of standing your ground in the world. The protectionists will spend their whole life sneaking around, cheating, plagiarising, lying, building bad bridges and so on and so forth. Being born with talent is of course a good starting point, and society should have a high regard for such things. It is a particularly desirable thing if they lead (not exercise power). Care must be taken, however, that the self-styled clique of such persons do not usurp power for their own self-interest. Indeed, the usurpation of power is not in the public interest, whoever does it.
Being born intelligent in itself does not make one meritocratic. It is whether or not he uses his intelligence for the public good that makes him so. The propensity to speculate and manipulate is also a peculiar by-product of intelligence, but it can hardly be called useful or exemplary.
And then let's look at another, even more commonplace system, the bonus-malus system prevalent in traffic. Does it work? Yes. There is nothing to ponder. It has a disincentive and it has an incentive. And you didn't even have to invent the wheel.
There is one other very objectionable thing that should be abolished, and that is the so-called honorary doctorate. If there is one thing that slaps in the face of merit in its own right, of many years of hard and real work, it is when we give such a title to a complete outsider, who is usually a politician.
Let us return to the world of objectively definable values of public interest, which can be defined independently of the opinions of political sides.
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