Is Britain becoming more meritocratic than America?
It is certainly trying harder to reward ability, rather than money or connections
IN 1774 THOMAS PAINE left Britain for America to become a radical pamphleteer and revolutionary agitator. In “Common Sense”, published two years later, he explained why he had chosen to emigrate. Britain was built on heredity, a loathsome practice rooted in theft (William the Conqueror was the original bandit who stole the people’s land) and perpetuated by idiocy (what could be more absurd than giving a job to someone because of who their parents were?). “The artificial noble sinks into a dwarf before the noble of nature,” he said, and Britain was a land of artificial nobles. America, by contrast, was animated by the glorious principle of merit.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “The great reversal”
Britain August 7th 2021
From the August 7th 2021 edition
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