Meritocracy

[Dr. Goodword]

• meritocracy •

Pronunciation: mer-ri-tah-krê-si • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: Governance by people chosen on the basis of merit, for their competence rather than birth, wealth or other criteria.

Notes: This word, parallel to democracy, comes with the same full panoply of derivational forms as that word. A meritocracy is meritocratic governance conducted meritocratically by meritocrats. (Forgive the redundancy: it's the only way I can get the noun, adjective, and adverb forms all in one sentence.) All organizations aspire to be meritocratic. The only problem is that we have differing opinions of what is meritorious.

In Play: The dream of everyone is a meritocratic government: "If Congress were based on meritocracy, there would be only a handful of members." A merciful meritocracy in the workplace is crucial for a successful business. This isn't always the case, though: "Gladys Friday certainly wasn't promoted to vice president meritocratically."

Word History: Today's Good Word is English merit + -ocracy, a combining form indicating a particular form of governance. English merit is Old French merite with only the silent E trimmed off. Old French inherited this word from Latin meritum "reward, merit," based on the past participle of meriri "to earn, deserve". Other related words based on the same root include emeritus, the title bestowed upon retired professors (ex "out of" + meritus "reward") and meretricious "gaudy, flashy, like a woman who gets what she deserves, that is, a prostitute". Finally, there is turmeric (don't forget the first R). Turmeric came to Middle English as termeryte from Old French terre-merite "earth's reward". (William Hupy certainly merits our gratitude for suggesting today's very Good Word.)

[Slava]

To forestall any mental meanderings, no, it's not related to termite. Even if our meretricious politicians are devouring our house from the inside out.

[David Myer]

This is a modern word (that is, it was invented in my lifetime). It was very popular in the days of Harold Wilson and Edward Heath in post-war England. It was not applied to government so much as to everyday life. It was used to start to dismantle the class system that so pervaded British society, business, and yes, government too. It simply meant to reward or provide benefit based on merit.

My father was appalled by the idea, well recognising that if he had been rewarded on the basis of his desserts, he would have been very poor indeed.

Interesting that apparently, the guy who coined the term originally was also uncomfortable with the concept. This from Etymonline

meritocracy (n.)
coined 1958 by British sociologist Michael Young (1915-2002) and used in title of his book, "The Rise of the Meritocracy"; from merit (n.) + -cracy. Related: Meritocratic.

[Young's book] imagined an elite that got its position not from ancestry, but from test scores and effort. For him, meritocracy was a negative term; his spoof was a warning about the negative consequences of assigning social status based on formal educational qualifications, and showed how excluding from leadership anyone who couldn't jump through the educational hoops would create a new form of discrimination. And that's exactly what has happened. [Lani Guinier, interview, New York Times, Feb. 7, 2015]

It is worth noting that despite gargantuan effort over 65 years, Eton still delivers up Prime Ministers.