Perhaps I was not clear. A merit system that tolerates cronyism and "other isms" is not actually a system based on useful merit. And I believe that most people

Perhaps I was not clear. A merit system that tolerates cronyism and "other isms" is not actually a system based on useful merit. And I believe that most people who are hating on meritocratic systems are really hating on corruption or dysfunctional systems. What is the point of getting a "A+" based on some merit based score if Ahmed can get in by being your cousin? Corruption would tolerate this happily. So penalise corruption! To use your example, your cousin was put in place due to nepotism. This is very much covered by my "some other ism" as corruption or at least bad behaviour. Cronyism and nepotism both bypass natural "best person for position based on merit" selection criteria. Integrity is well within performance measures under a meritocratic system, eg police who are corrupt can't be seen as acting as the ideal for police officers or authority by any useful measure (merit). If you hired your cousin that nepotism impacts both yours and your cousins integrity and therefore merit. This bypasses the meritocracy and is actually simple corruption. Plenty of other "isms" are also really just corruption in various forms: sexism, racism, tokenism, ageism. I'm sure there are plenty more.