6/8: The Meritocratic Sunak Government in turmoil: The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World, by Adrian Wooldridge
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 29 January 2023
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
1904 Tokyo
@Batchelorshow
6/8: The Meritocratic Sunak Government in turmoil: The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World, by Adrian Wooldridge
https://www.amazon.com/Aristocracy-Talent-Meritocracy-Modern-World/dp/B0B4PWWDJ9/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1655594403&sr=1-1
In The Aristocracy of Talent, esteemed journalist and historian Adrian Wooldridge traces the history of meritocracy forged by the politicians and officials who introduced the revolutionary principle of open competition, the psychologists who devised methods for measuring natural mental abilities, and the educationalists who built ladders of educational opportunity. He looks outside western cultures and shows what transformative effects it has had everywhere it has been adopted, especially once women were brought into the meritocratic system.
Wooldridge also shows how meritocracy has now become corrupted and argues that the recent stalling of social mobility is the result of failure to complete the meritocratic revolution. Rather than abandoning meritocracy, he says, we should call for its renewal.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is CBS Eye on the World. |
| 0:08.0 | Here's John Batchler. |
| 0:10.0 | I welcome Adrian Woldridge of the Economist magazine. |
| 0:14.6 | He is Bajan. |
| 0:16.0 | At the same time he is Adrian Woldridge author of a new book, The Aristocracy of Talent, |
| 0:22.5 | How Maritocracy Made the Modern World. |
| 0:25.3 | Heavans this sweeps over enormous a period of history from kingships reaching back all |
| 0:32.2 | the way to Plato and then right up till now, Marito Crats is the word. |
| 0:37.1 | It was invented in the 20th century. |
| 0:39.6 | But we begin with what Adrian introduces as a diddy from the 19th century to describe the |
| 0:47.3 | contest for finding why people are elevated and why people are not elevated in human history. |
| 0:55.2 | It goes like this, God bless the squire and his relations and keep us in our proper stations. |
| 1:03.3 | Adrian, good evening and thank you and congratulations. |
| 1:07.8 | That diddy for me is your book because the contest against that presumption that there |
| 1:14.1 | is such a thing as proper stations has informed arguments for, well at least 2500 years. |
| 1:21.1 | Let's begin with where you identify the hierarchical presumption of mankind. |
| 1:27.9 | How did it work and what was its genesis? |
| 1:30.3 | What drove it Adrian? |
| 1:31.3 | Good evening to you. |
| 1:32.3 | God, thank you so much for inviting me and thank you for starting off with such a profound |
| 1:38.2 | question because I think it's important to recognize that for most of human history, |
| 1:43.5 | the assumptions that we now have about individualism, efforts, merit and reward have not been |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.