![]() Accordingly, our paper does four things: firstly, we place Michael Young’s thinking in context, to show how his belief in meritocracy was associated with a certain kind of socialist vision which sought to ameliorate existing class divides, and that his critique of meritocracy can only be understood in terms of his socialist perspective. This is not just a coincidental association: meritocratic beliefs are not opposed to inequality-only to discrimination, which prevents people with the right ‘merits’ from reaping rewards. Beliefs in meritocracy, we show, actually go hand in hand with greater economic inequality. ![]() As has increasingly been demonstrated by social science research, income and wealth inequality has increased at the very same time that meritocracy has been embraced as a guiding political principle. However, in this paper we argue that meritocracy is also a deeply elitist project. The appeal of this meritocratic agenda is plain to see. This agenda united social scientists, who emphasised the need to tackle ongoing class structural barriers to social mobility, alongside equal opportunity campaigners, especially around questions of race and gender, and the numerous campaigners for educational expansion and enhancement. Much of this research was driven by a concern to open up opportunities, increase social mobility and thereby promote equality of opportunity in line with the egalitarian liberal political agenda which held sway from the early 1970s. This emphasis on meritocracy was not rosy eyed: in its wake it generated a proliferation of research, emphasising how meritocratic principles were not in fact being applied. Trend in the words ‘meritocracy’ and ‘plutocracy’ in books published between 19 Meritocracy thus pitted the brave new world of talent, individual reward, and dynamism, against the hidebound world of the crony establishment. It is not incidental that, as Figure 1 shows, the growing prominence of the term meritocracy in English language books took place at the very same time that references to plutocracy declined. ![]() ![]() Arguing against the principles of meritocracy appeared to hark back to an ‘old boys club’ of elite networks and oligarchic power. Taken up by powerful currents urging for enhanced educational provision, a more skilled workforce, and the value of human capital, it also became an iconic mantra with the rise of equal opportunities and anti-discrimination agendas, in which recruitment purely on the virtue of ‘merit’ became de rigueur. Young, The Rise of Meritocracy, Harmondsworth, Pelican, 1958. The term meritocracy was popularised by Michael Young’s The Rise of Meritocracy, and has become an utterly mundane feature of the political landscape. ![]()
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