meritocracy

English

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meritocracy

From merit +‎ -o- +‎ -cracy, coined by British sociologist Alan Fox in 1956 in an article in Socialist Commentary from May 1956, used as a derisive term,^[1] and popularized by British sociologist Michael Young, Baron Young of Dartington in his 1958 book The Rise of the Meritocracy.^[2]

meritocracy (countable and uncountable, plural meritocracies)

Rule by merit and talent.
As a small nation without natural resources, Singapore relies on education and meritocracy to develop its economy.
- 2019 September 5, Sarah Leonard, “The Fall of the Meritocracy”, in The New Republic‎^[1]:
  In Markovits’s telling, the rise of the meritocracy is a story of unintended consequences.
- 2019 September 9, Jennifer Schuessler, “The Meritocrat Who Wants to Unwind the Meritocracy”, in The New York Times‎^[2]:
  Its faculty has also been a factory of books taking differing positions on the merits and demerits of meritocracy and elite education.
A type of society where wealth, income, and social status are assigned through competition.

Though widely used as a term of praise,^[3] the term was originally coined as a satire, and a critique of awarding educational achievement.^[2]

rule by merit

^ “meritocracy”, in Word Origins, 2019 April 30, retrieved 2022-07-24
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 Down with meritocracy, by Michael Young, in The Guardian, June 29, 2001.
^ Meritocracy's Lab Rat, by Timothy Noah