The Rise of the Meritocracy

The term meritocracy came to the fore in 1958 when the British sociologist Michael F.D. Young published a satirical account of aggressively achievement-based modern societies. In Rise of the Meritocracy, young introduced the concept into sociological discourse and the popular lexicon. However, meritocracy, as young wrote about it, was a caricature of social policy excesses promulgated in pursuit of the ill-defined goals of social efficiency and merit-based justice. Whatever Young's intention, meritocracy failed to catch on as a satirical caricature, but quickly became an exemplar, a composite of organizing principles for the modern world. The idea of meritocracy, a society in which social roles and rewards are distributed according to realized ability and demonstrated performance, became a point of departure for evaluating the workings of our social world. Whatever the cultural forces that distorted public perception of Rise of the Meritocracy, those forces seem to be pervasive and powerful. For example, fifteen years after its publication, Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve. a celebration of the presumed realization of meritocracy, still sells very well. Critical reviews of The Bell Curve commonly are met with hostility, and the fact that it has rightly been dismissed as "junk science" and "social science pornography" seems only to affirm its readers' faith. There seems to be an abiding and widespread fear that the truly meritorious -- you, me, whomever -- will lose their rightful place and suitable level of compensation because brains and hard work will not be rewarded. But look around us, take full toll of the economic mess that the U.S. is in now: is this a meritocracy? Looks to me as if the boys and girls who ostensibly have the brains have been short-sighted, willfully stupid, and limitlessly greedy. I think meritocracy works best as satire and caricature, and Young was right.

The term meritocracy came to the fore in 1958 when the British sociologist Michael F.D. Young published a satirical account of aggressively achievement-based modern societies. In Rise of the Meritocracy, young introduced the concept into sociological discourse and the popular lexicon. However, meritocracy, as young wrote about it, was a caricature of social policy excesses promulgated in pursuit of the ill-defined goals of social efficiency and merit-based justice. Whatever Young's intention, meritocracy failed to catch on as a satirical caricature, but quickly became an exemplar, a composite of organizing principles for the modern world. The idea of meritocracy, a society in which social roles and rewards are distributed according to realized ability and demonstrated performance, became a point of departure for evaluating the workings of our social world. Whatever the cultural force that distorted public perception of Rise of the Meritocracy seems to be pervasive and powerful. Amazingly, fifteen years after its publication, Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve still sells very well. Critical reviews of The Bell Curve commonly are met with hostility, and the fact that it has rightly been dismissed as "junk science" and "social science pornography" seems only to affirm its readers' faith. There seems to be an abiding and widespread fear that the truly meritorious -- you, me, whomever -- will lose their rightful place and suitable level of compensation because brains and hard work will not be rewarded. But look around us, take full toll of the economic mess that the U.S. is in now: is this a meritocracy? Looks to me as if the boys and girls who ostensibly have the brains have been short-sighted, willfully stupid, and limitlessly greedy. I think meritocracy works best as satire and caricature, and Young was right.

Even though Michael Young was clearly disturbed by the possibility of a society totally based on assigning educational & occupational positions to people based solely on "objective" indicators of merit -- mainly, IQ tests -- he nonetheless made a powerful case for why such a system could arise. Although he didn't credit Max Weber, Young's ideas about the rationalization of social life, based on ruthless means/ends assessments, clearly owe a huge debt to Weber. Young portrayed pre-WWII England as riven with class distinctions, with its economic & social institutions held back by the veneration of traditional elite privileges. Thus, his depiction of post 1959-England follows logically from his account of how various political parties and social movements championed replacing the old system with one that rewarded merit, not the legacies of birth. Most amazing to me is Young's prescient description of how a potent feminist movement arose in the 1960s & 70s to push for greater rewards to merit, regardless of gender. (Remember: he was writing in the late 1950s!) I highly recommend reading this book in conjunction with Jerome Karabel's book, The Chosen, which chronicles the growth of merit-based admissions policies at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, in response to the same forces that Young describes (Karabel does cite Young's book). Despite its age, this book is most assuredly NOT dated! However, readers unfamiliar with English social history in the 20th century will no doubt miss a lot of Young's subtle satire.

Dr. Young gives us a description of a society that abolishes priority based on family lines, and instead is based on intellectual achievement. He warns us against the excesses of such a system, but he does it an interesting way that treads dangerous ground. His narrator is firmly in support of the meritocracy system, and is given great eloquence by the author. Much as Aldous Huxley did in Brave New World, the system he seeks to question is championed by a very effective communicator. Some readers may not realize that Young was NOT an ardent supporter of the meritocracy idea, such is the eloquence of the narrator in its support. An interesting book that contributes greatly to the discussion, both pro and con. The final lines were beneath the rest of the book. A fiction writer can always make his point by having the characters behave in keeping with his theory. The philosophy was much better.