[kiba]

Merit is meaningful, but people confuse meritocracy with a just and equitable society.

If you are committed to selecting for the best, then you must select for individuals that are aided by factors outside their 'control', whether that's luck, environment, people, or genes. It does not matter how arbitrary or unfair these factors are, only that they help select the best men and women for a given job or career.

[rsj_hn]

People also confuse a just society with an equal society.

There is no particular reason to want everyone to be equal, and there are plenty of reasons you do not want this -- when everyone is equal, people are constantly fighting for who is best because if anyone just slightly increases their wealth/power, they will be the highest of all. People are fundamentally competitive, competing over social prestige, mates, etc. So creating a situation in which anyone can be king is a recipe for constant war. Thus the equal society is the most unjust society, because it is the society in which violence and conflict are maximized.

Moreover, it's better to maximize well-being rather than worrying about whether you think it is "fair" that talent is not distributed equally. What you can do is tax those who earn more and use that to provide social benefits to others. That is, set up a society in which everyone benefits from the outperformance of the elite, rather than trying to pretend that everyone can be elite, or that there is no elite at all.

[simplestats]

I'm not sure how much overlap ther is between the people who want meritocracy and the people who agree with your definition of a just and equitable society.

Luck and genes are generally considered fair arbiters in a sense, at least when they are the source of one's merit. No one complains the chess champion only won because she was fortunate to be given a chess board at an earlier age than the competition or something.