The prime minister seeks a “great” and a “true” meritocracy (Tories revolt over May’s grammar school plan, 10 September). Having been closely associated for 30 years with Michael Young, the coiner of the word, I feel justified in joining the fray. His essay The Rise of the Meritocracy, published in 1958 but set in 2033, correctly foresaw a society stratified, with selective education one of the chief drivers, into a merited elite (I+E=M was the mock-Einsteinian equation) ruling over a disenfranchised unmerited underclass, with the meritocrats, like all previous oligarchies, ensuring their children were the beneficial inheritors. In 2001, just prior to his death, Michael Young protested at Tony Blair’s adoption of the term as being a desirable objective. Michael’s dystopian view was that a meritocracy was as unequal, unfair and socially divisive as any other class-based system. Mrs May could well espouse such a society, but it is worth recalling that this sparkling classic essay won the Italian Silver Casse prize for best satire.
Eric Midwinter
Harpenden, Hertfordshire
• Your editorial (10 September) rightly questions the reasoning behind Theresa May’s restoration of selection but does not challenge the concept of meritocracy with anything like the effectiveness or passion of Simon Hattenstone’s article last month (On the up, G2, 11 August). If those with “merit” are to be rewarded with more money and a better life, it follows that those without will not be. Yet these failed meritocrats are the very people we all depend on to build our houses, transport our goods, care for us in sickness and old age, dispose of our refuse and make our coffee. Meritocracy and its cousin aspiration (much talked about, and rejected, in last year’s Labour leadership contest) are pernicious and dismal concepts which underpin a fundamentally bleak view of how society should be ordered. Never has there been a more pressing need for an alternative vision which celebrates life and the myriad opportunities for personal fulfilment for everyone, whatever “merit” they possess.
Michael Woodgate
Bristol
• Greening and May are going to give us a “meritocracy”? Oh please. For there to be a meritocracy under capitalism, you would have to abolish any mechanism by which wealth can be passed on from generation to generation (that ain’t going to happen), abolish any mechanism by which anyone can avoid tax of any kind (that ain’t going to happen), and abolish all forms of private education (that ain’t going to happen). All three of these mechanisms are in place precisely in order to avoid us having a meritocracy. Tinkering around with grammar schools (or not) isn’t going to affect that.
Michael Rosen
Professor of children’s literature, Goldsmiths, University of London
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
