Meritocracy vs. Democracy

David Brooks on China:

Imagine the Ivy League taking over the shell of the Communist Party and deciding not to change the name. Imagine the Harvard Alumni Association with an army.

Read the whole column. It's catnip for my own prejudices, since I've long thought that insofar as there's likely to be a serious ideological challenger to the liberal-democratic order going forward, meritocracy - rather than, say, Qutbism - is most the likely candidate for the job.