I also have some doubts about meritocracy for a couple of reasons:
1) Although we can try very hard to be objective, at the end of the day everything is subjective
2) So called "merit" seems to be largely based on genetic traits (Intelligence, personality, physical, etc)
I'm genuinely asking because I have no clue what people want "merit" to mean. I always assumed the entire point was to remove environmental factors (to varying degrees).
I don't know what merit should really mean though. It seems like there will always be some sort of hierarchy in society, so I guess defining what constitutes merit is a pick-your-poison kind of situation.
I'm a failure by meritocracy by nature of losing at all of the tests we use to judge success and merit - test scores, elite school admission, elite institutions etc.