I’ve just made a programme for Radio 4 about the populist revolts that swept Britain and America last year. Were they predicted in a book written by my father, Michael Young, almost 60 years ago? I’m thinking of The Rise of the Meritocracy, a dystopian satire that imagines a 21st-century Britain governed by a highly educated technocratic elite. Eventually, the intellectual and moral hubris of these Masters of the Universe is too much for ordinary people and they’re overthrown in a bloody revolution in 2034.
It often surprises people to learn that my father’s critique of meritocracy was underpinned by his belief that human differences are rooted in genetics, a view many on the left associate with neo-liberal economics and the libertarian right. How could the man who wrote the 1945 Labour manifesto and played an important part in creating the welfare state be a hereditarian? Surely the creed of socialism depends on believing that all men are born with the same innate capacities, and the reason some succeed and others fail is because of environmental differences?
Before trying to solve this puzzle, let me summarise the reason Michael thought meritocracy was doomed to fail. The problem, according to him, is that the abilities rewarded in a meritocratic society, namely, exceptional intelligence and drive, are natural gifts rather than learned characteristics. So you get plenty of social mobility when the principle first takes hold but, as a meritocratic society matures, this begins to tail off because the offspring of those at the top are more likely to have these traits than the children of those at the bottom. Of course there are exceptions. Genetic variation means highly able children are born to parents of lower intelligence and vice-versa.
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