https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/should

a bit upside down - wealth extraction is a measure of power.

development of power can be based on all sorts of things, it depends on the framework.

a nurse who is utterly incompetent will be fired quickly.

after a certain threshold though, obviously, competition won't be about 'ability' so much - but there are baseline ability and professionalism thresholds.

Increasingly true in Trump’s America.

It’s somewhat the point of democracy to maintain a limit on rent seekers’ and wealth extractors’ power on the political process. It should come as no surprise that the individuals who have grifted and extorted their way into power are also fiercely antidemocratic. The xenophobes and bigots that have hitched their wagons are equally deplorable.

isn't that exactly what a class terrified of the guillotine would want underclasses to believe?