Book your ticket to happiness with Sun Express Airlines. This is a

this is CBS in the world. I'm John Bachelor with Adrian Waldrich. His book is The aristocracy of Talent,

how meritocracy made the modern world.

And the left, or the wise are in the late

20th century doubtful that meritocracy produces results whether equitable results or even rational results, because we have the new

nepotism described with two family names, Bush and Clinton, the new nepotism. Those are hot topics in the United States.

So I want to back up a little bit and talk about the new rich and the old rich.

You write cleverly, very cleverly, Adrian, that the new rich require

posh surroundings and the old rich require academic academic degrees so they share their opinion that we're the

elite and we're just going to trade virtues.

Absolutely I think one of the things that's happened at the end of the 20th century was that the old

rich which inherited its money and the new which which made its money through intellectual

brilliance and academic success have sort of merged

into one.

So I say what we have ruling our society at the moment is not a meritocracy, but a Pluto meritocracy and that is a group of people who combine

ability with money but also if they have money they buy ability and if they have ability they acquire money

through through success in life and what they do this this this this this pluto meritocratic

elite at the top of society is they hoard opportunity.

And they hoard opportunity by using their wealth and connections to get their children

into the best schools, either private schools or state schools which function essentially as private schools because they're in the very, very wealthy areas where all the other children go to are wealthy and above all by

getting their children into elite universities which confer status and

connections. So what we have now is not the triumph of meritocracy,

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