Making a Mockery of Meritocracy

Need-aware admissions demonstrate the hollowness of our system of prestige

Photo by Charles DeLoye on Unsplash

In 1958, a British sociologist named Michael Young wrote a book called The Rise of the Meritocracy. The book envisioned a British society in which social class no longer mattered. Instead, the important people in society would rise to the top because of their intelligence and effort. The book introduced the term “meritocracy” to the world — a combination of words meaning “to deserve” and “rule.”

In America, we like to tell ourselves that we’re a meritocracy. The best of us are tested by a challenging, Darwinian system that sorts the excellent from the merely pretty good. Then those people, certified by our elite institutions, go on to take their rightful place in the towering heights of government, academia, and corporate America.

Here’s the thing — when Michael Young invented the term “meritocracy,” he was describing a dystopia. Here’s what he said almost half a century later:

The book was a satire meant to be a warning (which needless to say has not been heeded) against what might happen to Britain between 1958 and the imagined final revolt against the meritocracy in 2033.

Much that was predicted has already come about….