Moses deemed heredity and early education fixed limits on promotion worthiness.

Evidence

Was there, perhaps, a question as to the democracy of such a system? Moses’ answer was that a civil service with no class differentiation is “one of mediocrity” and “such democracy is false democracy.” What about the young man who educates himself, who goes to night school, perhaps, and earns a college degree while he is in the lower division of the civil service? Might not he be considered fit for promotion? Well, Moses said, [My] conclusions on this difficult question of democracy versus education in the civil service are these: In a sense it is a cruel thing to set up class distinctions—even if they only be intellectual… But where does our sympathy lead us? Can the state repair the defects of heredity or of early education? Can it endow the average individual with the intelligence, acuteness and cultivation which economic exigencies have denied him?… There should be no social bar to promotion from the lowest to the highest place—but let us not fool ourselves. When we have made every possible provision for the encouragement of early promise, when we have prepared every child as far as possible for its suitable vocation, the subordinate employees of the government…who are fit to rise above the ranks will be few and far between. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 236

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Ambedkar/Dewey debates on fixed rules versus experience, and to wider arguments that ‘merit’ frameworks naturalize hereditary advantage. — connects to: Moses’ ‘open competition’ meant restricting high office to the educated elite — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 233
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: does this early elitism trace a direct line to Moses’s later faith in technocratic, autocratic authority over democratic process?

Broader Connections

• Moses’ ‘open competition’ meant restricting high office to the educated elite #expands (0.85) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 233