On Credentials

Paul Graham's latest essay:

Credentials are a step beyond bribery and influence. But they're not the final step. There's an even better way to block the transmission of power between generations: to encourage the trend toward an economy made of more, smaller units. Then you can measure what credentials merely predict.

No one likes the transmission of power between generations—not the left or the right. But the market forces favored by the right turn out to be a better way of preventing it than the credentials the left are forced to fall back on.

The era of credentials began to end when the power of large organizations peaked in the late twentieth century. Now we seem to be entering a new era based on measurement. The reason the new model has advanced so rapidly is that it works so much better. It shows no sign of slowing.

Read the whole thing.