1. Good education hard to come by in the US, and immense wealth allows some people almost automatic access to the best education while others are outbid (either via property/school districts or via private school "donations" for entrance or via access to best prep services or via influence which is used to navigate "leadership" based entrance applications for k-12 schooling )
2. See item 1 -- this should not happen in the US, but it does. Our population has grown, but we've underinvested in schooling and all the foundational systems. The number of great schools has not necessarily grown with population. I see it myself in my hometown as skyscrapers rise, but schools are not built in proportion.
Allowing intergenerational wealth to bypass Problem 2 allows the plutocracy to avoid the problem with money (Problem 2) since it isnt their own problem anymore.
You're arguing against the American system as it is. Proponents of meritocracy wouldn't say that America has achieved it.
I agree with the other comments that meritocracy and inheritance are not at odds, especially if the meritocracy component is referring to positions of power & responsibility.
But your point is valid wrt America as it is. Education is a lynchpin of meritocracy. So, America's solution may need to include some reshaping of inheritance as a means to reshape the mechanisms of meritocracy. But the facile leftist take of (more or less) "ban inheritance" would be an overstep and create far more problems than its simplicity solves.
1. Good education hard to come by in the US, and immense wealth allows some people almost automatic access to the best education while others are outbid (either via property/school districts or via private school "donations" for entrance or via access to best prep services or via influence which is used to navigate "leadership" based entrance applications for k-12 schooling )
2. See item 1 -- this should not happen in the US, but it does. Our population has grown, but we've underinvested in schooling and all the foundational systems. The number of great schools has not necessarily grown with population. I see it myself in my hometown as skyscrapers rise, but schools are not built in proportion.
Allowing intergenerational wealth to bypass Problem 2 allows the plutocracy to avoid the problem with money (Problem 2) since it isnt their own problem anymore.