This is absolutely correct. Suspect you started with a Tabula Rasa society where everyone began with the same resources. You would still see differentiation after n generations: wealth and influence can compound over time and groups of people would gain influence, power, and money. And this is the expected outcome of a perfectly meritocratic system.

> wealth and influence can compound over time and groups of people would gain influence, power, and money. And this is the expected outcome of a perfectly meritocratic system.

It is not. In a meritocratic system, children wouldn't inherit resources, access to education would be conditioned purely by merit, and so would access to jobs, finance opportunities etc.

The nepotism rampant (edit: was "inherent") in corporations, government, the finance industry etc. are exactly the things that keep the rich rich and the poor poor.

This is interesting, and I've never heard this definition of egalitarian. It certainly does solve the philosophical problem I've raised. I'm curious (genuinely) if large numbers of people are seriously suggesting such a system. How would it even be implemented? Well-off parents cannot buy their children clothing or food? They cannot give their used car to their children? Etc? That rich parents could not pay extra for the health care needs of their children? I could understand (if potentially not really agree with) something more limited, such as a specific inheritance tax. But I don't see how you prevent rich parents from sharing their resources with their children in the broad sense.

There's an embedded cultural assumption in all of this: children are the property of their parents, rather than members of a community raised by the community as a whole.

The latter rings dystopian to the modern US ear, because our civic society has so thoroughly broken down. It's not just the ultra-wealthy who distrust their local public schools or wouldn't have a random neighbor keep an eye on the kids for a couple hours.

I'm surprised that you mention food, clothing and healthcare. It's absolutely possible to ensure that every child has access to these things, so that the children of rich parents do not have a large advantage in these respects.

Here's an old-school socialist vision for this (say, something along the lines of what Noam Chomsky would advocate):

- society (through local community funds etc) would ensure that everyone, regardless of anything else, has access to basic livelihood (food, shelter, clothes, transport, healthcare)

- society would ensure that everyone has access to the same educational institutions, including required resources (manuals, computer access etc.)

- people would strive to evaluate others based on actual aptitude, rather than class markers (e.g. someone speaking with a heavy "uneducated" accent or wearing low quality clothes wouldn't be looked down upon being evaluated for a professorship or top management position)

- inheritance would be heavily taxed; this would be set up in such a way that people would have a right to the human elements of inheritance - e.g. the home where they grew up, their parents' memories etc. - but huge transfers of wealth, such as inheriting your parents' Amazon stock would not be profitable.

Better off parents will still be able to give a better life and resources to their children, but the impact of that care on the ultimate outcomes will be much less. A "perfectly meritocratic" system would likely be horribly dystopic, such as entirely separating children from parents at birth, Brave New World style.

> It's hard to compensate for that

A good public education system goes a long way. At the moment in the US, rich kids benefit not just from the education their parents give them directly (which let’s face it is not necessarily that great just because they’re rich - how much has Ivanka benefited from Donald’s insights?) but also from the expensive schools that their parents can afford to send them too. Educational apartheid by wealth isn’t a necessary feature of a society. It can largely be legislated away given the social and political will to do so.

> Educational apartheid by wealth isn’t a necessary feature of a society.

It is a fundamental feature in class-based societies like USA, the UK and much of the rest of the Anglosphere. Maintaining the class structure and preserving the accrued intergenerational wealth from the upper strata of society means that the kids of those wealthier classes must acquire distinctive social manners and culture which sets them apart from the commoners.