The meritocratic delusion is that you would be in the "have" pile, rather than sitting in the back of the bus with the rest of the "have nots".

Of course, its statistically most likely that any individual would belong to the much larger latter group but stats like that only apply to other people, right?

Worse, its a zero step thinkers solution. Step zero is a merit based system, step one is for the people with motels on Boardwalk and Park Place to ensure they can never lose again by rigging the system to ignore merit in favor of capital.

> any individual

I'm not a random variable, I'm a specific human. Predicting future outcomes need to take into account my personal traits. Otherwise you get into absurdities like "statistically speaking, when you join a family reunion, 15% of the people you see there will be Indians, and another 15% Chinese".