The Aristocracy of Talent

Would you rather that your local football team or even the national team was selected through family ties or political connections? How did meritocracy—the idea that people should be advanced according to their talents rather than their birth—become the world's ruling ideology? Why is meritocracy now under attack from both right and left? Adrian Wooldridge shows what transformative effects it has had everywhere it has been adopted, especially once women were brought into the meritocratic system. He also shows how meritocracy has now become corrupted and argues that the recent stalling of social mobility is the result of… show more.

Genetics, meritocracy, and social mobility are often conflated. I was in awe of the breadth and clarity of this historical overview of how meritocracy overturned millennia of inheritance and patronage. The last half of the book diagnoses what’s gone wrong with meritocracy and suggests how it can be fixed. Adrian Wooldridge is The Economist’s political editor, which shows in the book’s brilliant and entertaining style.