No. I used to work at a company with an alleged meritocracy, rather than office politics. They claimed to value opinions based on the quality of the opinion, no

No. I used to work at a company with an alleged meritocracy, rather than office politics. They claimed to value opinions based on the quality of the opinion, not who it came from or how senior you were. Somehow the senior people always ended up having the "best" ideas, and because this was a "meritocracy" it obviously meant those who were higher up were there on their merits, not for political reasons. I left for other reasons, but the constant need to pretend that what would be described as office politics in any other organization was a result of this company's superior culture was frustrating.