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When Michael Young, a British sociologist, coined the term meritocracy in 1958, it was in a dystopian satire. (source: "The War on Stupid People"@The Atlantic)
The satire mentioned was by Michael Young; but no evidence was presented that this was the actual origin of the term. Is that indeed the case?
Google Ngram is a tool that list how often a word appeared in the printed works that Google scanned for it's Google books project.
The page for meritocracy indicates that the first usage was in 1811. From there it was used till 1816 and afterwards relatively forgotten. The word reappears in 1938. Till 1954 almost nobody used the term and it suddenly got a strong boost in 1955.
Did they use it in it's modern meaning? In 1954 Edward Abbey writes in Slumgullion stew:
The new America will be organized along sound military lines. Not an oligarchy as before, hiding behind a facade of democracy, but a hierarchy of power based on merit and ability. Meritocracy. Government of the people, yes. Government for the people, yes. But government by the people? Never again.
A hierarchy of power based on merit and ability is the modern meaning.
From looking at the graph the year 1958 got a little bump but that year isn't very special for the usage of the word meritocracy.
This means the claim by The Atlantic is false.
This question sent me down the rabbit hole, chasing incredibly bad references at Google Ngram, Google Books, and Google Scholar. Some notable supposedly early references that use the word meritocracy or meritocratic (listed from supposedly oldest to newest):
Household Words edited by Charles Dickens. In Household Words number 84 (volume IV, page 142), the author wrote "He evaded the pertinent questions of influential individuals, and took care never to listen to those of the mediocracy." The non-intelligence behind Google Books misinterpreted "mediocracy" as "meritocracy".
Sextus Julius Africanus und die byzantinische Chronographie by Heinrich Gelzer, 1880, in which the language magically changes from 19th century German to 21st century American English, referencing items published in 2005.
Slumgullion stew, by Edward Abbey. This is attributed as being written in 1954 by Google scholar. This collection was instead published in 1984. Mistaking an 8 for a 5 (or vice versa) remains a problem for supposedly smart software, even in 2016. Machine intelligence is anything but "intelligent" (at least not yet).
The 2008 Republican Platform, which Google Scholar misattributes as "America The Beautiful" by Katharine Lee Bates and Samuel A. Ward, 1926.
The Rise of the Meritocracy by Michael Young, which Google Scholar misdates as being published in 1870.
One thing is certain: Multiple sources attribute the term to Michael Young (and there are many more, including the Atlantic article cited in the question), and Michael Young himself claims to have coined the term.
One other thing is certain: There are a few uses of the term in published media prior to the 1958 publication of Michael Young's The Rise of the Meritocracy. One is the 1956 in Socialist Commentary by Alan Fox entitled "Class and equality". Even earlier than that, Jean Floud used the term in 1955 in "Sociology and Education," The Sociological Review.
Jean Floud, Alan Fox, and Michael Young had a number of commonalities. Jean Floud taught at the London School of Economics while Michael Young was pursuing his PhD. Alan Fox was a member of that 1950s circle of left-leaning thinkers that included Jean Froud and Michael Young. Since all three are now dead, it's tough to say which amongst those three coined the word "meritocracy". Michael Young had already been evincing thoughts along the lines that led to his publication of The Rise of the Meritocracy since 1951. Most references go with Michael Young as the originator of the word.
One last thing is certain: The term as coined by one of those three was anything but complimentary. It was instead quite derogatory.
