Pure communism doesn't exist, pure capitalism doesn't exist, pure fascism doesn't exist. Pure ideals of any kind don't exist. Meritocracy exists to varying degrees all over the place, and it's something we should be striving for wherever possible. There are good arguments for temporary exceptions to meritocracy to, say, correct historical inequities, but it's extremely important that those be viewed as temporary roadblocks on the ultimate path towards a society that is as meritocratic as we can make it. Which, by the way, doesn't necessarily mean that those low on 'merit' need to be left to die, we can still provide a good life for even the least economically valuable individuals, but yes, those who are providing the most economic utility to society should get to consume more of that utility.

> According to Frank, this is especially true where the success in question is great, and where the context in which it is achieved is competitive. There are certainly programmers nearly as skilful as Gates who nonetheless failed to become the richest person on Earth. In competitive contexts, many have merit, but few succeed. What separates the two is luck.

This is also completely false. What separates Gates from most other programmers of his skill level is willingness to take on risk. Gates took on tremendous risk to do what he did. He could have failed spectacularly, but he chose to enter the startup lottery and he won. That's the deal you make, you go into that game knowing that it's a lottery, and of course luck is involved. But we have that lottery in place for a very good reason: New companies provide tremendous value to society, and so it's important that we incentivize people to create them. Nobody would take on the kinds of risks that he did if the rewards weren't enormous.