Where is the proof of that?
Unless the system is highly unmeritocratic this does not happen. Say you work at McDonald's and you're a brilliant person. You will soon be promoted and get more options.
In those 8 eight hours you spend at work if you give your best you will be noticed.
I really don't think this is very likely. for one thing, it's hard to stand out as brilliant in a low-end food service job. no one cares. diligence is valued, but once you don't mess up customer orders and thoroughly clean everything on the closing checklist, there aren't really any ways you can improve as an employee. a place like mcdonald's is already highly optimized. there's not much room to get creative and show how clever you are. the difference in productivity between a barely qualified employee and the absolute ideal just isn't that great. if you do everything right and stick around a while, you might ultimately get to manage a single location. but you're still not making much money, and there's no obvious next promotion. the franchise owner isn't gonna be so impressed that they give you their own job.
The system is, as you say, highly unmeritocratic. It has no incentive to be meritocratic for a vast majority of the population. Even your theoretical brilliant McDonalds employee would find a ceiling at the management level a raise of a mere handful of dollars over the line cooks.
This is a sick way of thinking about the world.
A parent doesn't get paid for the work they do raising their child. Better flip burgers.
The lady who wants to teach under privileged youth art. Has no market value, better to flip burgers.
The next JK Rowling wants to write, but her writing produces no immediate market value. Best to just flip burgers.
The man who wants to help the homeless. Darn, next to no market value, better flip burgers.
I'm sick of forcing everyone to live as a slave to the market. The market is not perfect. The market does not solve every human problem. The market cannot accomplish everything we want to do as a species. The market is a tool, let's treat it as one and stop worshiping it.
So some of your examples have a short-vs-long term aspect, but others seem to miss the relevant non-monetary aspects, like feeling like you're "making a difference", status, control, beliefs, etc. The fact that things other than money matter on both sides of trade does not mean that markets are failing.
Have you seen how many cheap books 2nd hand shops try to sell? Nobody wants them. They often get dumped. Libraries continually dump books too. Some writing is so worthless that people won't even read it for free. That's not a value like teaching underprivileged youth art. It's a zero-value or negative value.
It's his responsibility to plan his life accordingly. He may write on weekends and slowly steer toward his passion. I'm with you that some talents are less appreciated by society and thus less rewarded. Fundamentally it's down to the individual to decide what he wants to sacrifice in his life.
Up to manager, which google tells me is ~$40k/yr?
Before getting into software development I worked a couple of retail/kitchen jobs where I was continually recognized for my hard word and dedication. My best wage was $11/hr, but the many "Employee of the month" awards were nice I guess.
This sounds not well thought out to me. How many movers and shakers do you know that started out poor and working at Mcdonads? None?
If you were born economically disadvantaged the odds of success are highly unlikely, do not let anyone tell you otherwise.
To give an example, one of Goldman Sachs former CEO's started as a janitor in the company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Weinberg#Career_at_Gold...
He was a high school drop-out.
It will sound harsh, but the truth is that most people are average. If you are brilliant and with a bit of luck you will make it to the top in most western countries.
Maybe you're confusing meritocracy with equality. Meritocracy does create an underclass of "unmeritous" people.
This may be the most Hacker News sentence ever written.
The system is highly unmeritocratic.
https://www.fastcompany.com/40510522/meritocracy-doesnt-exis...
You don't have to be brilliant. You need to be a good worker, pay attention to detail, keep your area clean, get along well with others, not buckle under pressure, and treat the customer well.
To judge whether or not a society is meritocratic, one metric until it falls to Goodhart's Law is look to how its whistleblowers and those who speak truth to power are treated. By that measure, populations in the US and most of the G20 are very tribal-, patronage- and nepotic-bound. Meritocracy prevails when challengers to ideas are embraced for the potential to further strengthen the system for everyone including themselves instead of excoriated.
Nobody cares how smart you are. Managers care that you come to work, do your job, and come in on you off days when people call off. Your coworkers only care that you don't fuck up and get them in trouble, and that you cover for them when they need a day off.