# kaal:claim:3782220-011

**Claim.** Where a person draws the line between necessities and nonessentials is itself a declaration of values: treating nothing as essential strongly favors meritocracy and treating everything as essential strongly favors equity.

**Type.** definitional  **Support.** argued

**Source quote.**

> If you say nothing is really essential, you are strongly favoring meritocracy. If you say everything is essential, you are strongly favoring equity. When you define your dividing line, you are signaling your personal judgment about what is valuable.

**From.** Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, *The Importance of Transcendental Unifying Values for Decentralization* (2021), Integrating polar values, page 4

**Cite as.** Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, The Importance of Transcendental Unifying Values for Decentralization (2021). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3782220

**Verify.** sha256 of source PDF `f0bf1e80c6da60a6f8ba20630562bdf1dab171ccb5267f497dc0b815113cde99` at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wulfkaal/Academic-Papers/main/papers/pdf/Calcaterra%20and%20Kaal%20-%202021%20-%20The%20Importance%20of%20Transcendental%20Unifying%20Values%20for%20Decentralization.pdf

**Topics.** institutional-design

**Keywords.** necessities, equity, meritocracy, value-signaling, definitional-line

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