The First Thing to Know: Meritocracy

The first thing to know about the concept of “meritocracy” is that it suggests a ratio in which people get what they deserve in proportion to how hard they work, multiplied by a co-efficient for how smart they are. Our society likes to call itself a “meritocracy”

The only problem with that concept is that the idea originally came from a political science-fiction novel, The Rise of the Meritocracy, by sociologist Michael Dunlop Young. Young used the novel to make sarcastic fun of a nepotism-based dystopian society in which the sons and daughters of the very rich are made to feel they have actually earned the success bestowed on them by blind luck, trust funds, and nepotism. Continue reading →