Personal and corporate welfare by meritocracy is an incredibly multi-layered issue. As a rule, corporate welfare aims to achieve goals for the entire team, maintain positive emotions, constant involvement in company processes, and improve the atmosphere of the working place (Mooney et al., 2016). In positioning meritocracy as a regime in which power goes to the strongest and most capable, there is reason to believe that wealth reflects a person’s standing in society. However, in public life, cause-and-effect relationships are not unambiguous, which is why meritocracy has not been implemented anywhere in the world at the state level. Moreover, aspects of well-being that transcend wealth are part of the corporate culture of many organizations. The principles of meritocracy inherently ignore the importance of means of obtaining an end, so they allow violations of corporate culture for the sake of personal welfare. Wealthfare, in turn, reflects a set of measures with which the state helps the upper and middle classes (Mooney et al., 2016). In a meritocracy, such assistance, on the one hand, contradicts the power of the strongest; on the other, it can be part of its political program.
The structural-functionalist perspective raises the question of the separation of society and wealth. Personal wealth should be considered in the context of the average well-being according to the determinant criterion. Corporate welfare will contribute to wealth among the people employed in various enterprises. Meritocracy, in turn, can create an aggressive environment at different levels of social strata of society, thereby “blurring” the lines between them. On the one hand, it opens up opportunities for the lower strata of society to succeed (Mooney et al., 2016). On the other hand, it endangers security and harmony within society since the power of the most capable people is far from an ideal one. Wealthfare is a manifestation of this division – support activities strengthen the upper classes of society, creating a gap from the lower classes. As a result, wealthfare contradicts the ideas of meritocracy from this point of view.
The prospect of conflict always exists as long as there are wealthier people and poorer people. For the latter group, especially in a meritocracy, there is always an opportunity to achieve the heights of the first group; just as for the rich, there is always a threat of losing everything. In this regard, constant conflicts encourage society to fight, creating a durable dynamic. Under the conditions of meritocracy, this fact would threaten a permanent change of power, resulting in an unstable political situation in the state, which confirms the lack of implementation of this regime at the global level. Wealthfare in certain situations can contribute to conflict by undermining the relationship of power with the lower classes deprived of support place (Mooney et al., 2016). In this perspective, personal welfare is equated to the level of influence in society, which makes this category contrary to the principles of meritocracy. The ability of companies to implement corporate welfare testifies to their adherence to modern trends in society and more comfortable working conditions for employees place (Mooney et al., 2016). From the point of view of the conflict, on the contrary, tries to smooth it out by its very nature, excluding its possibility.
From a symbolic interactionist perspective, personal welfare can be displayed through various signs or hidden by people. Corporate welfare primarily consists of assessing interactions with other employees. Wealthfare can and does improve the personal relationship between two people, but in general can have negative consequences for society as a whole (Mooney et al., 2016). In a meritocracy, an aggressive environment is created where wealth is used as a mechanism to achieve goals and in itself is not a goal.
The central myth about welfare is that it can be interpreted without considering many side criteria. In the theoretical analysis in this work, the fundamental principles of meritocracy can be compared with the aspects of wealthfare and corporate welfare. However, in the absence of a pure meritocracy globally, these conclusions are devoid of practical significance (Mooney et al., 2016). Personal welfare is different for each person, as well as corporate welfare complies with the requirements of social responsibility in each company in different ways. Consequently, in reality, assessing these categories is possible only in conjunction with the context of each specific case, even about such large-scale regimes as a meritocracy.
Reference
Mooney, L. A., Knox, D., & Schacht, C. (2016). Understanding social problems 9th Edition. Cengage Learning.