Editing Meritocracy (section)

====Michael Young====

Michael Young popularized the word "meritocracy" as a pejorative but it was adopted into the English language without the negative connotations that Young intended it to have.  It was embraced by supporters of the philosophy. Young expressed his disappointment in the embrace of this word and philosophy by the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] under [[Tony Blair]] in ''[[The Guardian]]'' in an article in 2001, where he states:
<blockquote>It is good sense to appoint individual people to jobs on their merit. It is the opposite when those who are judged to have merit of a particular kind harden into a new social class without room in it for others.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Young, Michael, ''"Down with meritocracy"''. The Guardian; 28 June 2001|newspaper=The Guardian |date=29 June 2001 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment|access-date=2024-05-16}}</ref></blockquote>