We may balk at the social stratification that the biblical wisdom anthology is prepared to accept, and even to endorse.
Understandably, we admire the social fluidity of a true meritocracy, even if it falls usually to voices from outside our own cultural perspective to point out how flawed we are in the execution.
Despite these caveats, surely we can appreciate the Proverbs’ appreciation for what is ‘appropriate’.
It is not fitting for a fool to live in luxury, much less for a slave to rule over princes. (Proverbs 19:10 ESV)
When a fool comes into big money that allows him to live both lavishly and loudly, we are repelled by the sight. We hope he doesn’t move in next door. Something deeper than aesthetic preferences is in play. We sense not only that something is inconvenient in this picture, but also simply wrong with it.
Likewise—here we must stretch for empathy with the proverbialist’s perspective—an uneducated, unprepared, inexperienced novice is not fit to rule over decision-makers with the gravitas and sophistication that is only acquired through long service, confidential conversations, and quiet discretion. In this sense, something is wrong with the picture in which a person whose life has prepared him to follow orders ends up wielding dangerous authority. He’s not only in the wrong seat of the bus, he’s thrown the driver out the door and is careening down the highway to the peril of innocents.
There is a conversation in which the ethics of social immobility must be scrutinized and criticized. The curator of proverbs is enough of a meritocrat to have time for such deliberation.
On this side of that serious conversation, social order is best not sold too cheaply for a mess of pottage, whether seasoned by revolution or sentiment.
Canter Bridge 
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