Recent events have catapulted the issue of class back into political debate, and raised questions about how meritocratic Britain really is in the early 21st Century. With ex-members of the Bullingdon Club occupying the top three Tory positions (Leader, Shadow Chancellor and sadly, too, the London Mayoralty) and the row about the anti-toff tactics deployed by Labour in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, the chattering classes have another opportunity to debate one of their favourite topics.
I think it is time we came up with more progressive and inclusive definition of meritocracy; one that fits modern British society and that creates rights and responsibilities for every British citizen. True, one effect of the transition from Blair to Brown has been a welcome recognition that a meritocratic Britain, on the traditional simplistic definition, is not enough.
If by meritocracy we simply mean that people with talent and drive should be allowed to succeed, then meritocracy alone will not do. Some of Blair’s speeches evoked a society that had not learnt the lesson of Michael Young’s ‘The Rise of the Meritocracy’. Written shortly after the Second World War, this remarkably prescient, future-set novel focuses on an intellectually superior ruling elite who lord it over various lower tiers of society, each one carefully tested and graded according to their cerebral capacity and then allotted tasks appropriate to their ability.
The intellectual elite occupies the top jobs and enjoys all the trappings of status and success, but its members feel such a strong sense of entitlement to being the most privileged people – precisely because they ‘know’ they have the most ‘merit’ – that they feel nothing but contempt for those who, through no other means than the genetic lottery, are not so gifted and whose life chances are so limited. That is not social justice, that is a dystopian nightmare, and in the book at least a revolution ensues.
Meritocracy is part of the vision of a good society, but not of itself sufficient. There has to be a recognition that some people will not be able to succeed in life, through illness or accident or the burden of caring for others. And there has to be a recognition that meritocracy is for the many, not the few – sometimes the way people talk about meritocracy suggests that only a very few people have any talent worth mentioning, or else that the only talent that matters is the kind that produces good exam results, a place at university or a well paid job in commerce or the professions. Smart kids from deprived backgrounds should of course have access to world class educational opportunities in the state sector and the chance to go to the best universities, but there has to be more to meritocracy than simply providing an academic escape route to the good life for the 5% of each generation with the best brains.
So Gordon Brown has rightly gone out of his way to express his belief that every single child in Britain has a talent, and that everybody can and should succeed at something (‘Shine Week’, at the end of the summer school term, will be a creative and fun celebration of this fact, with the PM as its chief champion). This is a welcome recognition that meritocracy is not just about future professional or commercial success – important though that is – but can extend to success in the artistic and creative arenas, in competitive sport or in civic life.
But the definition of meritocracy should be widened still further, and should take account not just of a person’s talents and how well they deploy them in their chosen field, but who benefits from their talents. Of course, those who do well in business or the professions are creating jobs and wealth, and some even pay taxes. But our definition of meritocracy should also encompass the notion that those who are successful in our economy or in any other field of human endeavour should give something to society voluntarily, especially to those people and communities at the margins.
Meritocracy should imply that the wealthiest have responsibilities. They should not simply rely on tax and spending, let alone on trickle down theories, to spread the benefits of their success – they should be just as smart and innovative at investing in those areas of human life that lie beyond the market and in those people who have not yet enjoyed the same opportunities to nurture and express their own particular talents. The very definition of success has to be partly about what you do with it, not just about having it, and any meaningful definition of meritocracy – and indeed leadership, for that matter – should include an obligation for successful people to help others to succeed.
Our top businesspeople, professionals, sports stars, artists and indeed journalists could collectively give back so much more, and thus help to transform our society – we need to create a culture that both cajoles them into giving (‘to die rich is to die in disgrace’, as Andrew Carnegie said) and celebrates them when they do so (‘it is more blessed to give than to receive’, which should be the motto above the door of every Departmental Honours Committee). There are some fantastic examples of smart philanthropy and community investment already out there, from the Premier League to the City, but all could do better and most could do a lot more.
And this is one area where New Labour’s twin heartlands – our traditional supporters and the middles classes – have a lesson to teach the most successful in society. The richest in Britain, whether their money is new or old, generally show a shocking lack of generosity. With a few notable exceptions, the proportion of income given to good causes is appalling low for the wealthiest few, and significantly higher among ‘the many’. The same often goes for volunteering – the gift of time, and usually a stronger indication of real commitment than a chequebook.
What the wealthiest so easily forget is that their success is not purely the product of their individual talents or efforts, as they so often believe. Their so-called individual success is always the result of teamwork, which begs the question whether the people they rely on in their own organisations to get things done get a fair share of the rewards. And their success is always the result of the interaction of their individual gifts and energy with the riches of social capital in a free and open society where their predecessors have invested heavily in the next generation’s opportunities.
Today’s high-fliers in any field did not themselves create the conditions for their own success, so they cannot claim they have no obligations to wider society. If the future is going to remember them fondly, they need to live up to the good example of the most generous and public-spirited leaders among their successful forebears.
Nick Bent is a former special adviser