America Needs a Better Meritocracy

Meritocracy is like free trade. Countries or classes embrace it when it advantages them and view it more skeptically when they are no longer on top. Like Great Britain before us, America preached free trade when it meant opening up foreign markets to our world-beating products and enriching our allies. When it came to mean losing our industrial base to China, we belatedly started to ask whether the case for free trade was really so axiomatic.