Actually the corollary to my point is that there can never be a true meritocracy anywhere on the planet. It's impossible for exactly the reasons you've outlined. It doesn't mean it's not worth striving, but I do agree that anyone who tells you that they've done it has simply quit trying and is rationalizing that fact.

People fuck up all the time. I would never claim that there's no issue because we already have a meritocracy. We don't. We will never have one. Like a lot of ideals it's something worth looking at by comparison, to decide how closely we want to model our actions on it.