Reforming Elites the Confucian Way

American Affairs, Summer 2017

Meritocracy has become a theme of great interest in contemporary politics, both in Western and Eastern societies. But attitudes toward meritocracy in the two regions differ sharply. In the West, the concept of an elite constituted by its most intellectually gifted and energetic members came into its own in the later nineteenth century with the adoption by the British government of civil service exams. The reform was promoted by British liberals such as William Gladstone and G. M. Macaulay, who believed government offices should be held by the best qualified, not by the well-born or their patronage appointees. For them, meritocracy was a matter of fairness, efficiency, and egalitarianism. In the United States, meritocracy took slightly longer to establish; examinations for the civil service were formally established by the Pendleton Act of 1883. The ideal soon spread to higher education. One of its most effective proponents was James B. Conant, the president of Harvard from 1933…

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