The merit system is the process of promoting and hiring government employees based on their ability to perform a job, rather than on their political connections. It is the opposite of the spoils system.
Famous quotes containing the words merit and/or system:
“Others greater than I have already eulogized you, but none of them ever had the pleasure I had to feel the caresses of your warm, soft hands, to merit your warm embrace that was reserved only for us, to see your half-smile that always told us so much, that same smile which is no longer, frozen in the grave with you.”
—Noa Ben-Artzi Philosof (b. 1978)
“A heresy can spring only from a system that is in full vigor.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)