Meritocracy and the 'Classless Society'

by Adrian Wooldridge

A Meritocracy is a grand idea, an impressive dream – and a possible future.

Having placed the rational alongside the radical, the sublime with the ridiculous, and a common sense with an uncommon insight, I have managed to invoke a vision of almost unlimited potential and opportunity - founded upon the immutable values of peace, love, and liberty.

The idea of a Meritocracy is vast, imaginative - and utterly revolutionary. A more holistic, simplistic and wholesome way to organise a society or a nation state; away from the fractured, fearful, and violent tendencies towards the more enlightened and inclusive pathway of kindness and understanding.

A Meritocracy shall lay a sustainable foundation upon which we get to build a good society, where we can live happily and without fear.

48 pages, Paperback

First published November 9, 1995

About the author

Adrian Wooldridge (born November 11, 1959) is the Management Editor and, since 1 April 2017, the 'Bagehot' columnist for The Economist newspaper. He was formerly the 'Schumpeter' columnist. Until July 2009 he was The Economist's Washington Bureau Chief and the 'Lexington' columnist.

Wooldridge was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied modern history, and was awarded a fellowship at All Souls College, also at Oxford University, where he received a doctorate in philosophy in 1985. From 1984 to 1985 he was also a Harkness Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley.