'The Aristocracy of Talent' Review: Getting Ahead, Falling Behind
By: Leslie Lenkowsky (WSJ)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
In 1958, the British sociologist Michael Young published "The Rise of the Meritocracy," a fictional narrative that imagined a world where leaders in business and government would be chosen on the basis of talent and effort rather than social status, wealth or power. But the book, which brought the word "meritocracy" into the English language, wasn't written to celebrate such a world. To the contrary, it was intended as a warning that those who fell behind in the competition to get ahead were likely to resent the new elite and would eventually rebel.
As Adrian Wooldridge notes in "The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World," Young predicted that the rebellion would occur in 2034. But in the U.S. and Britain, it seems to have already begun. And while Young expected it to be driven by left-wing concerns over inequality and unfairness, the opposition to meritocracy now also includes forces on the political right who accuse the new elite of championing measures that benefit its own interests at the expense of the wider public's. Britain's vote to withdraw from the European Union and the election of Donald Trump in the United States are, in Mr. Wooldridge's view, signs that many voters are no longer willing to defer to the judgments of supposed experts.
"The Aristocracy of Talent" (Skyhorse, 504 pages, $24.99) is an effort to respond to this backlash. Although Mr. Wooldridge, an editor and columnist at the Economist, makes a strong case for the practical and moral value of meritocracy (while acknowledging its flaws), he doesn't fully confront what might be its most disturbing challenge today: doubts about just what "merit" is or whether it even exists.
The idea of meritocracy is not new, of course. Mr. Wooldridge dates it to ancient Greece and Plato's utopian vision of a governing class of carefully educated "philosopher-kings." Imperial China developed an extensive "examination state," he writes, to identify the most talented citizens throughout the country and bring them to the emperor's court as "mandarins." Liberal thinking about the rights of individuals and the oppressive character of the ancien regime helped fuel the spread of meritocracy in Europe after the Enlightenment. Rapidly in France and more gradually in Britain and elsewhere, confidence in the traditional, patronage-dispensing elites of landowners and nobles collapsed. This shift in outlook, as Mr. Wooldridge shows, led to reforms in schooling, government, business and the military.
It was in the United States, Mr. Wooldridge says, that meritocracy had the strongest appeal. In an 1813 letter to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson distinguished between two types of aristocracies: an artificial one "founded on wealth and birth" and a natural one rooted in "virtue and talents." He argued that the Constitution enabled Americans to separate the two and enjoy the benefits of the second, the natural aristocracy, which was well suited to "the instruction, the trusts, and government of society." With the important exception of race, the United States developed, in Mr. Wooldridge's phrase, as "a republic of merit."
Since the 1950s, in America especially but also in Europe, meritocracy has faced increasing criticisms. These partly stem from questions about the methods used to identify ability, such as I.Q. and the Scholastic Aptitude Test. The criticisms also reflect policy failures blamed on overconfident experts, such as the Vietnam War and the 2007-08 financial crisis. As important, Jefferson’s “natural” aristocracy has begun to look like his “artificial” one: By attending selective schools, marrying one another and residing in separate communities, among much else, society’s most successful members have distanced themselves from everyone else—in a literal sense and in their outlook on work, politics and culture.
Mr. Wooldridge responds to such criticisms in some detail. In his discussion of standardized tests, on which he wrote an earlier book, he argues persuasively that the tests’ originators saw them as ways of attaining morally and politically progressive goals, such as improving educational opportunities and promoting upward mobility. Part of the appeal of standardized tests was their objective criterion, allowing merit to show itself no matter the test-taker’s parentage or background. He also warns that while Europe and the United States are ever more critical of meritocracy, authoritarian countries, most notably, China, embrace it. A future in which people of intelligence and talent work on behalf of nations like China—i.e., nations that reject liberal values—doesn’t seem like a desirable one.
Mr. Wooldridge believes that meritocracy could be salvaged if it were bigger and wiser. We need to employ better ways of identifying and assisting people of “virtue and talents,” he says. He suggests other improvements: a broader range of tests and types of instruction; more pre-school education; fewer “legacy admissions” at selective colleges; fewer restrictive zoning laws, so that those trying to succeed can live among those who have done so. He also urges paying more attention to vocational education and respecting people who hold valuable jobs that don’t require Ivy League degrees, such as the hospital “careers” applauded during the pandemic. Merit, in short, can be less narrowly, if still rigorously, defined. Not least, he calls on those whose abilities have carried them to the top to think more about their duties, not their privileges.
Though none of these ideas is particularly new, they are all worth considering. Still, they avoid a problem. If, as one hears at the most elite institutions these days, there is no “right” or “wrong,” even in mathematics and science; if the facts of history are somehow unavoidably subjective; if the entire social order is maimed by historical sin or malevolent bias—then it becomes almost impossible for society to reward those who do indeed know more and act more virtuously. Perhaps the first step in responding to the critics of meritocracy is to restore a broad agreement that some things are better and more correct than others.
Mr. Lenkowsky is a professor emeritus at Indiana University.
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