Merit is close to the idea of investment. Everyone deserves equal investment, yet investment is not distributed equitably at all. Education, internships, ment

Merit is close to the idea of investment. Everyone deserves equal investment, yet investment is not distributed equitably at all. Education, internships, mentorship, etc are all investments, but more importantly, they snowball. An executive branch cabinet official likely had a high profile job, and a high profile job before that, and a job with mentorship before that, and several internships before that, and admission to a great college before that, and potentially private school before that, and potentially community clubs or community help before that, maybe they had a parent in a position of power. Every opportunity helps you get more opportunities in the future, and those who have capitalized on opportunity are those people you would say "have merit." So merit ultimately does not measure productivity, but investment. With this understanding strictly "meritocratic" systems are systems that do not promote social mobility. Communism is often maligned (and it should be, because it empirically always results in authoritarian rule) and our schools did indoctrinate us with "communism is bad" and "there must be profit motive for people to work," but we have a blindspot for oligarchy which is a system with no social mobility and little public investment which is a much more likely outcome than communism. Wealth disparity results in oligarchy and we are very much on our way. If people have no hope for their future they become a drag on society as a whole, so it is important that it is not just productivity, but willingness and ability to work that is taken into account. It is our responsibility to lift our fellow man up, so they do not drag us down. If merit is the sum of opportunities capitalized on, then it's important to distinguish between those who have merit because they had many opportunities, and those who have merit because they capitalized on the limited opportunities they were given.