Because it's under the guise of meritocracy, where if you just work hard enough, say 60 hours a week, you too can become CEO someday.

"Meritocracy " isn't a thing, since the "merit deciders" (ala kingmakers) decide whatever they want. (Or the next question in that line: who decides what merit is and who has it?)

And, the gist also has very strong vibes of Ronald Wright's misattributed John Steinbeck's quote:

“John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/328134-john-steinbeck-once-...

60 hours of golf is a lot.

The actual machinery of government is not a democracy either. People who work at Federal agencies have to do what their managers tell them to do.

We elect the head of the executive branch. The rest of it is basically run like a bunch of corporations. We certainly don't elect the people who work at the IRS, for example.

The people to whom the org is responsible are the (Greek) demos[1]. For governments, this is the people. For corporations, this is the shareholders. Corporations are somewhat democratic WRT their demos.

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/demos