Rayner and Dowden gorge over king Charles at a vomit-inducing PMQs

Your article blows it with an attack promoting and equally vile idea of merit: meritocracy. This is a satirical term, not one to be elevated, but rather to be eviscerated. It is nobles disgusting to say that the goods of the world be distributed according to “merit” (whatever the fuck that even is) than privilege or inheritance. All are equally deserving and by right of existence should have free access to all that they need. “Merit” is simply political-rhetorical bullshit, used to deliberately to forcibly withhold the necessities of life and mal-distribute the rest through claims that someone has either “earned” it (or not). I find it increasingly concerning how the contributors to the canary are blindsided by obviously problematic ideas. Society is not a natural category of thing, it is a construct, and has no necessary existence. In matters of how it is organised and the goods it produces are distributed, all there then is is politics. At that point, there are no facts, only views, perspectives and opinions. As soon as someone says that one person is more deserving than another, for any reason they might conjure up (race, sex, genes, merit, ability, role, education, skills, hard work, etc.) they’re making political statements, not factual ones, about worth. And we need to be clear, that worth is being connected to existence. The canary writes extensively about disabled people, in particular those affected by chronic fatigue of whatever cause. A “meritocratic” perspective would see the worth of those with illnesses linked to chronic fatigue diminish to around zero. Instead of using whatever insult comes to mind, however stupid and inconsistent it is (you’ve called people “bitches” in a recent insult piece, so you’ve lost any credibility when it comes to challenging sexism and misogyny, unless you’re thinking it’s ok when you’re sexist, it’s just a problem when others are, and you’ve used vegans as objects of insult – talk about punching up, FFS). I think sometimes you use insults without thinking, and end up sounding ideologically inconsistent and quite prejudiced. Not a good look, and it undermines your message, which is important. We need to move away from ideas about who is or isn’t deserving, to seeing everyone as equally deserving – using work, someone’s role, work, and so on, as the basis of distribution is just as toxic as privilege. There are so many barriers to accessing work of all kinds, all work is political, division of labour is perverse and unnatural, work is not freely chosen, but depends on selection (not merit), and there is no method for evaluating the worth of anything we might call “work” (leaving it to the “market” to decide is no answer to that one either). And meritocracy has a hidden premise – that people have to demonstrate their worth to others, that existence is predicated on work done for others. We have another word for that: slavery.