The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution

by Francis Fukuyama

Physical losses to the ranks of the aristocracy also had the effect of encouraging promotion within the military based on merit. In the early Zhou, positions of military leadership were claimed entirely on the basis of kinship and status within the clan. But as time went on, an increasing number of nonaristocratic leaders were promoted on the basis of their valor in battle. States began to offer explicit incentives of land, titles, and serfs as inducements to soldiers, and it soon became common for obscure commoners to rise to the position of general.9 In a field army at war, meritocracy is not a cultural norm but a condition for survival, and it is very likely that the principle of merit-based promotion began in military hierarchies before it was introduced into the civilian bureaucracy.