The development of meritocratic concepts in the first half of the twentieth century

Abstract

The article gives a brief overview of the meritocratic concepts in the first half of the 20th century, analyzes the causes of their occurrence and peculiarities. It is noted that in the early twentieth century. Due to the extraordinary pace of the spread of scientific and technological progress, it became necessary to substantiate the feasibility of transferring production management and the whole society to a particular category of people - carriers of technical knowledge, qualified specialists. These ideas about the transfer of management to engineers, and later to managers were backed by successes in the development of science and technology, the technoculture of the industrial world required managers, technocrats. Thus, meritocratic ideas in the early twentieth century. have become technocratic. The technocratic concepts, popular in the US and in Western Europe, were based on ideas of T. Veblen. With the advent of large corporations, the business laws were transferred on production’ and society’s management, the idea of «revolution of managers» replaced the idea of «revolution of engineers». The theorists of the «revolution of managers» – the transition of the society’s management to educated, highly skilled managers – became A. Berley, J. Bernham, P. Drucker. In the 1950s, the term «meritocracy» appeared, initially in a negative sense. Later, in the 1960–1970’s with the advent of the concepts of industrial society, its meaning changes, the term «meritocracy» was used to refer the system of society management by qualified specialists, educated and highly moral – in this way, the significance of meritocracy is approaching the technocratic concepts of the first half of the XX century. The author of the article proves that the emergence of technocratic concepts in the first half of the twentieth century. was the answer to the challenges of scientific and technological progress. The ideas of the "revolution of engineers", and later the "revolution of managers," demonstrated the desire of leading philosophers, sociologists, economists to find the laws of effective government and society by transferring the laws of production and business.