Meritocracy is economically efficient but often congeals into an ideological dogma justifying a plutocracy of the talented, even though talent is - to a very great extent - an undeserved function of genes and environment outwith one's control.
Personal hot take on meritocracy:
I think that "talent" is a tricky thing. Meritocracy (which I might define as "how much you get/are paid/are given access to is based on your talent and/or contribution to society") based on talent sounds maybe sort-of fair if "talent" is either innate or purely self-driven.
If instead "talent" is (primarily) about the quality and extent of your training/schooling (and there's a lot of research to suggest that in most domains, it is) than even a very effective meritocracy is going to (IMO) perpetuate wealth and class disparities (5-year-olds don't decide to go to a great preschool and pay for it themselves, their parents do).
If I were a wizard trying to make a society with lots of upwards mobility I'd make it a lot harder to transmit generational wealth/privilege and try a lot harder to make sure everyone has the same resources/opportunities. I'm sure that would come with a ton of its own problems (even outside of just pissing people off), but it does seem worth at least acknowledging that any kind of merit-based assessment of people is going to be super biased towards those with wealth and privilege.
It seems very unlikely to me that an apocalypse scenario would lead to a _more_ merit-based society - rather that it would wipe out a lot of social protections & aids that _do_ exist (both from the government and civil society at large) for those currently at the bottom of the economic ladder. Whether we'd go feudal or just kinda-worse-than-we-are-now I certainly have no idea.
That only bothers people who want to make life "fair" at the expense of what is practical.
There is a reason we let people keep the wealth they build. It's not because it's "fair." It's because taking it away, and having the brutes or demagogues decide how to distribute it, makes the society a hellhole.
"Demagogues decide how to distribute it, makes the society a hellhole"
Fortunately corporate management and promotions are so different frin politics, no way would a demagogue or someine incompetent be in position of power and decide how to distribute wealth
Wouldn't work in the Americas, which have a far lower average level of human capital. You can't redistribute what has not been produced. There are lots of examples of this in history.
By the way, the US health system crisis is caused by regulatory capture. There is no way to regulate the regulators to prevent this. At least, not in a failed democracy such as the US.
Probably the only way to regulate the regulators in a society as complex as the US and most other countries (contra Scandinavia) is with strict constitutional principles. That's the only way I know. Once you put "people" in charge, corruption and other dysfunctions eventually reign.
Are there any “not failed” democracies in your estimation? If so, what are they doing right that the US is doing wrong? Or is the whole Democratic experiment a failure?
One might look at Switzerland. A big difference between there and the U.S. seems to be that the people can petition for a vote on adding or removing any law or amendment they don't like, at any of their three levels of government. Contrast that to the U.S., where this ability doesn't exist in most places, including the federal government which was designed to be responsive to the states and not the people.
The Swiss also have a tradition of local power where possible, to the point that most of their social programs such as health care are handled by cantons (states) that average a third of a million people each. While in the U.S. we have literally a thousand times that many people arguing over health care at the federal level.