Distopie del merito: Kurt Vonnegut e Michael Young

Abstract

This paper examines the dystopian critiques of technocratic selection articulated by Kurt Vonnegut and Michael Young in the aftermath of World War II. Vonnegut’s Player Piano (1952) depicts a technocratic society in which automation has eliminated most forms of labor, creating a rigid elite of engineers and a purposeless mass of citizens confined to meaningless state. Notably, the novel anticipates the possibility of a “third industrial revolution,” driven by artificial intelligence, which could render even intellectual elites obsolete—an insight that resonates strongly today. Young’s The Rise of Meritocracy (1958) envisions a society where intelligence testing and educational selection produce a new ruling class based on cognitive merit. Initially celebrated as efficient and just, this system gradually ossifies into a hereditary caste, stripping the excluded of dignity and political agency while fostering resentment and eventual revolt. Both works expose the paradoxes of efficiency-driven societies: what promises fairness and progress becomes a mechanism of exclusion, oligarchy, and dehumanization. Together, they demonstrate how dystopia functions as a critical lens on modern anxieties, warning against sacrificing solidarity and creativity in the pursuit of order and efficiency.