ABSTRACT

The Rise of the Meritocracy, like Brave New World, describes a utopia, although the former uses the guise of history, while the latter purports to be a novel. Both utopias are seductive because they carry a contemporary ideal to its logical, if distant, conclusion. Thus Huxley's world is the fruition of the cult of happiness, while Michael Young's derives from the cult of efficiency. Huxley's critique of happiness does draw to some extent upon his reader's masochism, playing up the sweetness of temporary deprivation. Young's critique of meritocracy is subtler. He presents the book from the viewpoint of a social historian, trying to explain perplexing unrest among the working class in the year 2033. This fictitious author identifies with the intelligentsia, and he encourages the reader to do the same. The powerful are getting more educated, and the educated are getting more powerful.