> Well nothing is truly meritocratic

How do you figure? Many things in life are meritocratic. Apply for a job welding, they'll ask you to weld some coupons. If you can do it, you get the job, if you can't then you can't. If your father was a welder or a banker makes no difference, merit is about being able to do the work, not whether life was fair to get you to that skill level.