The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World
Adrian Wooldridge
Rave
Positive
Mixed
Pan
The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World
Adrian Wooldridge
Rave
Positive
Mixed
Pan
Rave
Positive
Mixed
Pan
Although Mr. Wooldridge...makes a strong case for the practical and moral value of meritocracy (while acknowledging its flaws), he doesn’t fully confront what might be its most disturbing challenge today: doubts about just what 'merit' is or whether it even exists.
... The Tyranny of Merit...declares it unfair that so many of the rewards in life have gone to those fortunate enough to have been born with superior intelligence. Wooldridge’s work is a welcome retort to this argument; or at least I agree with his point that intelligence alone (the 'lucky genes', as some have it) is never enough to produce extreme success, especially not in commercial life, where the big money is to be made. Wooldridge rightly stresses the importance of hard work.
But what is Wooldridge’s recipe for meritocratic reform? He is not easy to pin down. His last chapter is a slalom, veering at moments towards the positively eccentric...and then drifting leftwards.
The Aristocracy of Talent is finely constructed: fluent insights include the importance of Plato’s distrust of democracy, on the grounds that it tended to lead to tyranny, and his insistence on the need for a leadership of experts.