The myth of meritocracy: an inquiry into the social origins of Britain’s business leaders since 1850

Recent sociological analysis of the extent to which modern British society hasbecome more meritocratic raises important conceptual issues for the recurrenteconomic history debate concerning the social mobility of Britain’s business leaders.The majority view in this debate is that high social status backgrounds havepredominated in the profiles of businessmen throughout the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies. François Crouzet’s The First Industrialists reveals that Britain’s industrialpioneers were drawn largely from the middle-and upper-classes, and that the image ofthe self-made man as the mainstay of the Industrial Revolution is a myth. Stanworthand Giddens identify a prevalence of ‘elite self-recruitment’ among deceasedcompany chairmen active in large corporations and banks between 1900 and 1970.[...]