THe #Meritocracy Myth @Guardian: “As wealth increasingly reflects the innate distribution of natural talent, and the wealthy increasingly marry one another, society sorts into two main classes, everyone accepts that they have what they deserve.” I expected that the poor and the disadvantaged would be done down, and in fact they have been. Michael Young has christened the oligarchy of the future "Meritocracy." Cite this entry Click here to upload it and we’ll publish the best submissions in the letters spread of our print edition, Readers respond to Kwame Anthony Appiah’s long read on the author of The Rise of the Meritocracy, published 60 years ago, Michael Young, author of The Rise of the Meritocracy. But it is clear that our democratic system is incapable of producing leaders of merit and a future where everyone can achieve the maximum of their potential.Derek Heptinstall Westgate-on-Sea, Kent, Kwane Anthony Appiah’s article on Michael Young omits any reference to his part, with Peter Laslett and Eric Midwinter, in establishing the University of the Third Age in the UK. Herbert Morrison was in many ways an even more significant figure, whose rise to prominence was not so much through the unions as through local government. The article considers something of the conceptual history of meritocracy in postwar Britain. They no longer have their own people to represent them. Michael Young has christened the oligarchy of the future “Meritocracy.” Indeed, the word is now part of the English language. The term “meritocracy” was coined in a 1958 dystopian novel, The Rise of the Meritocracy, written by Michael Young (Young 1958). Ability of a conventional kind, which used to be distributed between the classes more or less at random, has become much more highly concentrated by the engine of education. The relationship between the two institutions was always rather cool and the naming of the OU’s new business school building after Young in 2001 was probably something of an olive branch. Michael Young has christened the oligarchy of the future Meritocracy. Kwame Anthony Appiah’s long read does not cover the impact, importance, and consequences of expensively ingrained self-confidence. It is the opposite when those who are judged to have merit of a particular kind harden into a new social class without room in it for others. I hope. Top bonuses and golden handshakes have multiplied. To make the point it is worth comparing the Attlee and Blair cabinets. The new class has the means at hand, and largely under its control, by which it reproduces itself. Michael Young has christened the oligarchy of the future "Meritocracy." These remarkable and flourishing endeavours are, of course, completely free of any negative notions of “meritocracy” in providing creative educational opportunities for large numbers of people.Keith RichardsLondon, Kwame Anthony Appiah’s reminder that Michael Young’s The Rise of the Meritocracy is dystopian satire is timely. One might add to Appiah’s rightful description of Young’s life-changing Dartington experience his other key influences, such as RH Tawney’s concept of decentralised public ownership, the principles of the cooperative movement and the communitarian ideals of 19th-century thinkers like Robert Owen and Peter Kropotkin.Eric MidwinterCo-founder with Michael Young and Peter Laslett of the University of the Third Age. In 1958, Michael Young published a book called The Rise of the Meritocracy as a satirical criticism of the concept of meritocracy. Oxford’s Bullingdon club goes one step further. His first job was also as an errand boy and assistant in a grocer's shop, from which he moved on to be a junior shop assistant and an early switchboard operator. Michael Young, when secretary of the policy committee of the Labour party, was responsible for drafting Let Us Face the Future, Labour's manifesto for the 1945 general election comment@theguardian.com Starting almost from ground zero in 1965, Singapore now has one of the highest living standards in the world with first-class education, health, and welfare systems, stable government and public approval. It would appear that the formula: IQ+Effort=Merit may well constitute the basic belief of the ruling class The term “meritocracy” was coined in a 1958 dystopian novel, The Rise of the Meritocracy, written by Michael Young (Young 1958).This novel was intended to serve as a critique of the term it introduced. This is no less crazy than the madness we are dominated by now, when so many of our “bright” people end up in financial services that contribute almost nothing to social wellbeing.Simon CohenCheltenham, Gloucestershire, Michael Young popularised but did not coin the term “meritocracy”. Michael Young has christened the oligarchy of the future â Meritocracy.â Indeed, the word is now part of the English language. I have been sadly disappointed by my 1958 book, The Rise of the Meritocracy. 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. So neither talent nor effort, the two things that would determine rewards in the world of the meritocracy, is itself something earned.”, These two points create a sort of cognitive dissonance. Indeed, the word is now part of the English language. It made London's public transport the best in the world for another 30-40 years and the LPTB was also the model for all the nationalised industries after 1945. It might be possible, following this idea through, to imagine an inverted meritocracy where the more cognitively endowed a person is the less they need other rewards – while those who possess less inherent enjoyment of capacities might need the rewards to compensate them. They can easily become demoralised by being looked down on so woundingly by people who have done well for themselves. Bevin left school at 11 to take a job as a farm boy, and was subsequently a kitchen boy, a grocer's errand boy, a van boy, a tram conductor and a drayman before, at the age of 29, he became active locally in Bristol in the Dock Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers' union. That is about as far as someone of his generation was likely to go in justifying patronage. Separating merit and recklessness is a key challenge of our age. Young’s fictional vision of a meritocratic society explores the consequences of a society where each citizen is judged according to the formula ‘I.Q. The two most influential members of the 1945 cabinet were Ernest Bevin, acclaimed as foreign secretary, and Herbert Morrison, acclaimed as lord president of the council and deputy prime minister. Michael Young has christened the oligarchy of the future “Meritocracy.” Indeed, the word is now part of the English language. Humans were reduced to … However, Young would definitely have smiled on hearing that the OU’s plan to get it out of its current difficulties is called the Critical Review Action Plan.Alan Woodley Northampton, Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com, Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters, Do you have a photo you’d like to share with Guardian readers? Michael Young has christened the oligarchy of the future "Meritocracy." As a result, general inequality has been becoming more grievous with every year that passes, and without a bleat from the leaders of the party who once spoke up so trenchantly and characteristically for greater equality. That came in 1956, two years before his book, when in the magazine Socialist Commentary (to which Young contributed) the industrial sociologist Alan Fox put the word in quotation marks and defined it as “the society in which the gifted, the smart, the energetic, the ambitious and the ruthless are carefully sifted out and helped towards their destined positions of dominance, where they proceed not only to enjoy the fulfilment of exercising their natural endowments but also to receive a fat bonus thrown in for good measure”.David KynastonNew Malden, Surrey. He later became so influential as leader of the London county council partly because of his previous success as minister of transport in the 1929 Labour government. Neoliberalism has since appropriated merit to mean the ability to be a profit-generating worker, where human beings only have worth as units of labour. It is hard indeed in a society that makes so much of merit to be judged as having none. Indeed, The Atlantic’s piece points out that the term was coined with sarcastic intent in Michael Young’s 1958 novel The Rise of the Meritocracy 1870-2033: a sci-fi satire that imagines a dystopian future in which a rigid testing Martínez is referring to The Rise of the Meritocracy, 1870–2033, published in 1958 by the British sociologist and politician Michael Young. Abstract. They can be insufferably smug, much more so than the people who knew they had achieved advancement not on their own merit but because they were, as somebody's son or daughter, the beneficiaries of nepotism. Michael Young has christened the oligarchy of the future “Meritocracy.” Indeed, the word is now part of the English language. Top public schools exist to develop self-confidence. Instead, the reckless “heads I win, tails you lose” mentality of our supposedly meritocratic elite led to the 2008 financial crisis. I coined a word which has gone into general circulation, especially in the United States, and most recently found a prominent place in the speeches of Mr Blair. The old restraints of the business world have been lifted and, as the book also predicted, all manner of new ways for people to feather their own nests have been invented and exploited. With the coming of the meritocracy, the now leaderless masses were partially disfranchised; as time has gone by, more and more of them have been disengaged, and disaffected to the extent of not even bothering to vote. It would appear that the formula: IQ+Effort=Merit may well constitute the basic belief of the ruling class in the twenty-first century. Much to Michael Young’s chagrin, the term has … John Young Edinburgh, Your excellent article on Michael Young could have concluded with a further irony: that Young’s son Toby (disdainer of “functionally illiterate troglodytes with a mental age of six”) got into Oxford only after a phone call from his father.Bill BradburyBolton, Greater Manchester, Kwame Anthony Appiah writes: “If we want people to do difficult jobs that require talent, education, effort, training and practice, we need to be able to identify candidates with the right combination of aptitude and willingness and provide them incentives to train and practice.’, Later he adds: “The capacity for hard work is itself the result of natural endowments and upbringing. They have been freed from the old kinds of criticism from people who had to be listened to. Contrary to Kwame Anthony Appiah’s piece, Michael Young did not found the Open University. China, which has adopted meritocratic government in the last three decades, has seen the most rapid economic growth in human history, lifted 800 million people out of poverty and on the way to building “a moderately prosperous society” by 2020. Jennie Lee is commonly acknowledged as the OU’s midwife – and Harold Wilson proudly claimed paternity. Quite a few other members of the Attlee cabinet, like Bevan and Griffiths (miners both), had similar lowly origins and so were also a source of pride for many ordinary people who could identify with them. Indeed, the word is now part of the English language. A social revolution has been accomplished by harnessing schools and universities to the task of sieving people according to education's narrow band of values. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. There was also a prediction in the book that wholesale educational selection would be reintroduced, going further even than what we have already. Michael Young, Lord Young of Dartington, social innovator, born August 9 1915; died January 14 2002. It is a sharp contrast with the Blair cabinet, largely filled as it is with members of the meritocracy. • Michael Young, when secretary of the policy committee of the Labour party, was responsible for drafting Let Us Face the Future, Labour's manifesto for the 1945 general election, The man who coined the word four decades ago wishes Tony Blair would stop using it. have been sadly disappointed by my 1958 book, The Rise of the Meritocracy. It is good sense to appoint individual people to jobs on their merit. It describes a dystopian society in a future United Kingdom in which intelligence and merit have become the central tenet of society, replacing previous divisions of social class and creating a society stratified between a merited power-holding elite and a disenfranchised underclass of the less merited. It would appear that the formula: IQ+Effort=Merit may well constitute the basic belief of the ruling class Meritocracy still has to show that it can greatly reduce the inequality that inevitably happens in high-growth mixed economies. Indeed, the word is now part of the English language. British sociologist Michael Young wrote The Rise of Meritocracy in 1958; though the concept certainly existed before then, his book is largely credited with popularizing it. But irrespective of people's birth, status has gradually become more achievable. If branded at school they are more vulnerable for later unemployment. Generous share option schemes have proliferated. Patronage was seen then as cash donations are now: seedy, no doubt, and definitely vulnerable to corru… Michael Dunlop Young, Baron Young of Dartington (9 August 1915 – 14 January 2002), was a British sociologist, social activist and politician who coined the term " meritocracy ". It is highly unlikely the prime minister has read the book, but he has caught on to the word without realising the dangers of what he is advocating. In the new social environment, the rich and the powerful have been doing mighty well for themselves. It would help still more if he and Mr Brown would mark their distance from the new meritocracy by increasing income taxes on the rich, and also by reviving more powerful local government as a way of involving local people and giving them a training for national politics. It would appear that the formula: IQ+Effort=Merit may well constitute the basic belief of the ruling class in the twenty-first century. Michael Young has christened the oligarchy of the future â Meritocracy.â Indeed, the word is now part of the English language. Capitalism thrives on win-win gambles. Isn’t the free reward of these skills enough? It would help if Mr Blair would drop the word from his public vocabulary, or at least admit to the downside. The essay satirised the Tripartite Systemof education that was being pra… If meritocrats believe, as more and more of them are encouraged to, that their advancement comes from their own merits, they can feel they deserve whatever they can get. Appiah also ignores the complexity of Young’s political and sociological interactions in the 1950s debates over Labour policies, not least over the evils of selective secondary education. It both acted as something of a pilot study for the OU and laid on preparatory courses for the first OU students. Michael Young entered the aristocracy because he needed the money. The first half of … Arguments against meritocracy used to come from the left. They have been deprived by educational selection of many of those who would have been their natural leaders, the able spokesmen and spokeswomen from the working class who continued to identify with the class from which they came. 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