Twilight of the Elites: America after Meritocracy by Christopher Hayes is a book well-worth your time. Most of us are unhappy to one degree or another with our society. During the past 10 years or so we have seen many failures and that is the starting point of the book. But what is the solution? I still don’t know. To be honest about it, I really didn’t expect one book to have all the answers but this is a good start in identifying some of the problems and suggesting some possible solutions or at least some improvements.

A lot of the problem is the elites. Who are they and what do they do? There doesn’t seem to be a standard definition of the elites. But clearly they are there. We disagree about who they are but, as pointed out in the book, we suspect we are not included.

The story of elites is complicated. But we do agree that the elites are not what they used to be. And one of the central themes in this book is discussing this change and relating it to the changes in our society.

How does meritocracy fit into it and how did it change the elites? If the failures of the elites are responsible for the failures of society, why did the elites fail us? How does the growing financial and social inequality play into it?

I sometimes listen to my iPod as I walk. On one walk shortly after this book came out, I heard a podcast of Christopher Hayes being interviewed on Point of Inquiry. I found this interview so interesting, I read the book as soon as I could get it.

Christopher Hayes has written a fascinating book that delves into these issues and discusses them in a very interesting and informative manner. It is a complicated discussion and cannot be adequately summed up in a blog post or even an article of any reasonable length. A book is needed and here it is. I highly recommend this book.