I'm not sure why this person decided to redefine the essence of meritocracy to mean the biased notion of evaluated merit that keeps the powerful in power. This whole rant falls apart if you assume an honest desire to promote based on merit, which is often what people mean when they claim to be meritocratic. Granted they don't execute it properly, and aren't fully honest when they say that they value it, but lets get one thing straight:

meritocracy is not "a system for centralizing authority in the hands of those who already have it".

This rant is without base.