It's a real pity that people don't look at the numbers but talk about these issues as if they were categorical decisions between "either meritocracy or socialis

It's a real pity that people don't look at the numbers but talk about these issues as if they were categorical decisions between "either meritocracy or socialism". That's a false dichotomy. There is wealth inequality and then there is wealth inequality. There is a difference between a society in which the average employer earns 30 times more than the average employee, and a society in which the average employer earns 300 times more than the average employee, or one in which the average employer earns 3000 times more than the average employee. Repeat those statements with median. There is also a huge difference between a society with a Gini index of 0.28 and one with a Gini index of 0.49. And it makes a huge difference if the index is increasing or decreasing or staying stable. There are dozens of other factors and indicators that can and should be taken into account. For example, the percentage of income spent on rent is a huge factor. If you spend more and more income on rent, your discretionary salary disappears very fast. You seem to assume that any kind of wealth and resource distribution is fine, as long as society is just meritocratic, but that's clearly not the case. Moreover, this cannot just about chances for the talented. You also want to live in a society in which untalented people can live a decent life in dignity, a society in which relative poverty does not lead to widespread social unrest or crime. If the gap between rich and poor wouldn't continually increase and the trend wasn't further aggravated by existing inheritance laws, there would not even be a need for discussion.