The Myth of Meritocracy

London is now the unpaid intern capital of Europe, and in journalism it shows.

disproportionately large number of places at Oxford are taken up by people with Norman Conquest surnames such as Baskerville, Darcy, Mandeville and Montgomery

during a debate in the House of Commons in 1807, the Tory MP Davies Gilbert warned the House that ‘giving education to the working classes would be bad for their morals and happiness.

1870 Education Act, the first piece of legislation committed to providing education on a national scale. The policy was driven by Liberal MP William Forster

There ought to be no shame in not wanting to compete or in being found to lack the requisite ‘merit’ to do so. Cast out the meritocracy and there needn’t be disgrace in knowing your station.

A more egalitarian society would ensure that everyone could live well, whereas a meritocratic society would endlessly remind the drudges of their worthlessness. A just society is thus not a meritocratic one.

The American author John Steinbeck once observed that socialism never took off in the United States because the poor saw themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

The more meritocratic Britain becomes (or, to be more precise, the more Britain believes it is a meritocracy), the less sympathy there will likely be for those who find themselves at the bottom. If you believe that poverty is mainly caused by personal imprudence, you are less likely to want to see the government spend money trying to alleviate it. Similarly, if you expect to possess riches in the near future – or, more accurately, if you believe that the opportunity to do so is equally open to all – you are less inclined to want to impose higher taxes on the rich.

This is reflected in a growing belief that the poor lack resources due to personal failings. In recent years there has been a hardening of attitudes toward the recipients of welfare. According to a recent British Social Attitudes Survey, poverty today is increasingly seen as the fault of the individual, rather than as a reflection of larger processes. Support for spending on welfare has declined significantly in the past three decades

Britain is becoming more like the United States in terms of how we view success