Mérito e reconhecimento no mercado capitalista.

Um comentário normativo.

Abstract

This papers aims to discuss the concept of merit from a normative perspective. Despite its practical distortions and consequently the usual sociological suspicious about it, which deems the concept of merit as ideology, from the stated normative point of view the article defends the idea that a principle of merit opens up a path to a a form of criticism of capitalist societies that could help the formulation of a critical social theory. The article starts with a brief comment on the concept of merit and follows up with a discussion of Edward P. Thompson’s analysis of working class cultures in to demonstrate that already during the formation of the working class the principle of merit played an important role. The article continues by way of a discussion of some François Dubet’s and Axel Honneth’s intuitions about the moral dimension of merit, this time putting then into a critical connection with capitalism’s promise of self-realization and recognition. Having then achieved a critical formulation for the concept of merit, the article closes with a discussion of its potential as a critique of neoliberal capitalism.