[naming_the_user]

It's impossible to define merit in a way that excludes things like social background.

If you're looking for someone to work in, say, yacht sales to wealthy X-ese clients then you might just find that a native X-ese person of a decent social class is a better salesman by definition because the clients respond better to them than they would a lower class Y-ese.

That doesn't mean that merit as a concept doesn't exist or that better people aren't hired for jobs. It means that "better" is not limited to your IQ or book-learning.