"The Rise of the Meritocracy 1870- 2033" was written by Young in 1958 and is in a long line of political satire masquerading as fiction. Like H G Wells, he was shunned by the Fabians and other fake socialists for laying open some of the fundamental dangers of Labourism. Like Jack Londons "Iron Heel, he formulated his fears in the form of a future manuscript where instead of the socialist utopia, there arose a new form of oligarchy which he termed "Meritocracy". It is bizarre indeed that Blair should have rushed to pour accolades on Youngs grave (coming to bury not to praise, one might think) for perhaps neither he nor Brown quite understand the implications of their advocacy of Meritocracy. As recently as 29 June 2001, Young said in the Guardian;
" Four decades ago, I wrote a book warning of the risks of what i called a Meritocracy. Now my worst fears are being realised"
Young was also the author of a sociological study "Family and Kinship in East London", and an introduction to James Burnham's "The Managerial Revolution" of 1939. The latter is perhaps the only piece of political theory ever to unsettle Trotsky, with its then startling suggestion that Soviet Russia and NSDAP Germany were becoming almost indistinguishable. Young concluded that for all the mistakes Burnham made, a managerial dictatorship could still arise if democracy failed.

Michael Young 1915- 2002