I suspect you'll find at the top of all self-styled "meritocracies" are people who have socially engineered the definition of "merit" to be them and their empir

I suspect you'll find at the top of all self-styled "meritocracies" are people who have socially engineered the definition of "merit" to be them and their empire. And this is the profound problem with all "meritocratic" structures. They might start out on a small scale selecting for some genuine skill, but measuring humans can be easily gamed. A game which narcissists win and reinforces their narcissism by telling them what they want to hear about themselves.