The Rise of the Meritocracy

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The Rise of the Meritocracy is a satirical novel by British sociologist and politician Michael Dunlop Young which was first published in 1958. It describes a dystopian society in a future United Kingdom in which merit (defined as IQ + effort) has become the central tenet of society, replacing previous divisions of social class and creating a society stratified between a meritorious power-holding elite and a disenfranchised underclass of the less meritorious. The essay satirised the tripartite system of education that was being practised at the time. The narrative of the book ends in 2034 with a revolt against the meritocratic elite by the "Populists". The book was rejected by the Fabian Society and then by 11 publishers before being accepted by Thames and Hudson. Meritocracy is the political philosophy in which political influence and power is concentrated in those with "merit", according to the intellectual talent and achievement of the individual. The word is formed by combining the Latin...

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