I just finished the book "The Aristocracy of Talent" by Adrian Wooldridge. It's a history of the idea of "meritocracy" and covers the criticism as well as the boosters, from Left and Right. I initially wanted to understand the reasons the British Grammar Schools came about, and why they disappeared (mostly) - suppressed for a supposedly better "comprehensive" educational system. The book is good and worth a read.

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/313113/the-aristocracy-of-ta...

There seem to be a few debates about the idea with the author on YouTube as well. I think we need meritocracy but it needs to be rebuilt again. It needs to help anyone with talents and not rely on wealth as much as it has started to.

Going to the book store today to see if they can find me a copy. Hoping they have Michael Sandel's book The Tyranny of Meritocracy in stock.

This book introduced the term "meritocracy" and warned of its troubling implications, like the hubris it would create in the most successful and their subsequent looking down on others, in part to justify to themselves that they earned and deserve their good fortunes.

Michael mentions this book in his lecture, which I have an ai bot cleaning up the transcript so I can memorize and re-give it (I know I'm weird, but maybe you will too and then it won't be weird, memorizing important speeches)

https://youtu.be/Vp5qsEuUOWo

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