The Rise of the Meritocracy
Michael Young’s 1958 satire, written as a report from the year 2033. It imagines a Britain where status is set by measured intelligence and effort, and shows the new elite growing smug while everyone else loses the comfort of believing they were held back by bad luck. Young coined the word meritocracy as a warning.
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Alison Wolf
It is also really important that people realise that the term meritocracy, which we now wave around as if it was the one thing we could all agree on as a good thing, was actually coined for this satirical novel. The rise of the meritocracy is not seen as the arrival of nirvana: it’s seen as something which has a large number of downsides, both socially and particularly in the way individuals feel about themselves.
Interview · February 2010
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