Open Source meritocracy: is it a good thing?

What is meritocracy, how does it work in Open Source, and is it helpful or hurtful (to the individual or to the project)?

Meritocracy \ˌmer-ə-ˈtä-krə-sē\ - "a system in which the talented are chosen and moved ahead on the basis of their achievement", states the first definition of the word.  The second is perhaps a little more telling: "leadership selected on the basis of intellectual criteria".

We've possibly heard the word or idea being tossed around, sometime during our lives.  Open Source seems to be quite taken by it.  So, it sounds like a good idea, what could go wrong?

We're actually living in a Meritocratic system, in many ways.  The term itself is stated to have been coined in 1958, according to the wikipedia article on Meritocracy.  Yet, in a way, people simply group together based on merit.  They always have.  It simply was a societal or cultural artefact of what, specifically, was of merit at any given time.

Meritocracy is not much more than what might be called "social darwinism".  In the earliest of days, merit was given to those who were strong, who could successfully bear many children, who could hunt.  These were the people who had merit.  They were the ones who were lofted to positions of tribal leaders or overseers of groups.  As time wore on, those with resources, money, tools, toys, and all the other things that people seem to find desirable, were those who had merit and were sought after as leaders.

But what, really, is the measurement of merit and value?  Is it IQ?  Is it a PhD?  Is it having worked in an industry for a long period of time?  Is it money or assets?  Is it the willingness to start at the bottom?  How about being willing to work evenings and weekends and 60 hour work weeks?  Is it how many people you have following you on Linkedin and Twitter?  How many projects you've contributed to, lines of code you wrote, number of articles you've posted?

This may sound harsh, but Meritocracy might just be little more than a popularity contest.  Does Mercedes have more merit than Ford or Tesla? Does Windows have more merit than OS/X or Linux or Solaris?  Does iPhone have more merit than Android or Black Berry?  How does one determine that the incumbent mayor has more merit than the unknown challenger?

The Open Source Software arena often looks up to the person who has worked or does work in a high profile tech company.  Or how many lines of code has been contributed to Open Source projects.  And those aspects are certainly of merit.  But if the goal is to have a person work in a underfunded startup or to produce efficient code that fits into a small memory allocation, then those two people might not perform well.  Meritocracy doesn't work, unless the goal is well defined.  Meritocracy certainly doesn't work when the goal is an abstract.

When we can define the goal and the task at hand, then can we determine what qualifications might be of value to achieve that goal or perform that task.  Is one's ability to replace a tire or one's ability to field service a flat tire, of more merit?  Meritocracy, as society appears to qualify it, may have little to do with one's ability to perform a task and contribute to a project.  One's past jobs, university degrees nor certifications, IQ, followers, location, known language, nor any other standard measuring stick can determine whether one can actually accomplish the task or fit the role.

Rather, it is the abstracts and immeasurable that might just make one person's ability to contribute, even though they may be untried and unknown and otherwise "without merit", much more valuable and desirable than another who might otherwise seem to be of merit.