[gruez]

>If you have even a half hearted belief in meritocracy that represents a failure of epic proportions.

I'm curious, what do you think "half hearted belief in meritocracy" consist of? From the rest of your comment, it sounds like any sort of economic system where you can earn money without the effort of yourself (ie. investment) isn't meritocratic?

[pydry]

Pretty much. If that type of income dominates your economic system it murders the incentive to actually create value.

Doing well in your career means nothing because the benefits are a rounding error on the rewards of having wealthy parents or getting into bitcoin early or whatever.

Quite apart from being grossly unfair it's grossly inefficient to structure the economy so that unearned income is privileged and dominates.