Singapore was explicitly created as a meritocracy, when it was granted independence from Malaysia by England. This was a deliberate contrast to Malaysia, where the government did and still does explicitly promote policies that benefit the Malay minority at the expense of the more economically successful Chinese minority. Singapore is now one of the most prosperous countries in the world.

Fun fact: the first president of Singapore was senior wrangler at Cambridge, which according to Wikipedia has been described as the "the greatest intellectual achievement attainable in Britain"[1].

Singapore also has one of the world's most liberal immigration policies, allowing practically anyone in who can get a reasonably paying job, instead of privileging the employment of its own citizens like most countries do.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senior_Wrangler_(University_of...

I would take a look at Fukuyama's "Origins of Political Order" and "Political Order and Political Decay". The first hints of meritocracy were in China during the Qin and Han dynasties, where exams where used to provide positions in bureaucracy to those not of noble birth.

Prussia was really the first example of this in the west, where in 1770 all civil servants were required to pass a written exam.

I think the East India company were the first western group to copy the Qin exam based merit system [1].

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company

All the ones that speak the language you just wrote in.

More seriously any society not ruled by a hereditary nobility is a meritocracy. The nobility did not embrace this change - they just lost the war with the middle class.

I should say that no society is a perfect meritocracy and that the past winners are always conspiring to keep out the new, but overall most current societies in the modern world are a vast improvement over the old, inbred-nobility ruled alternative.