The implicit assumption here is that American firms actually higher leaders based on some kind of objective leadership skills (and that the market will suck them all up).
I'm guessing whoever wrote this hasn't grown up poor/discriminated against, didn't beat their peers and find themselves never-the-less judged/ousted because they "weren't of the right background/proper means/cultural fit".
And remember, all it takes is a few key leaders. And that includes those who may have been part of the system but were unjustly ousted...(or those who just think they are getting a wiff of the winds of change and want to be on the right side)
/I'm not making any actual prediction of revolution the US incidentally. I'd be inclined against any theories of imminent revolution. Just pointing out that simple theories of "it wouldn't happen here because of our fake-meritocracy" are pretty off the mark.
The problem with your statement is that many people did and continue to do exactly what was stated going from rags to riches. Elon Musk is probably the most well known example. Now one of the most influential business and technological leaders in this nation, he immigrated from South Africa with little more than to rely on than his ability, motivation, and work ethic. A soft spoken immigrant with a slight speech impediment and South African accent is not exactly what you'd call 'the right background/means/cultural fit', yet it posed little issue.
More fundamentally the problem is that in America there is a very distorted sense of self. A total of 4% of Americans think they are less intelligent than the average American. [1] And so the vast majority of people in this nation who are not particularly meritorious think they absolutely are, or at the worst no less meritorious than average. Yet that, no matter how you measure it, is simply not the case.
The reason I chose Elon Musk is because he's a household name and most people are familiar with his story. However, 67% of all "high-net-worth" Americans are self made, with only 8% directly inheriting their wealth. [1] If you consider only men (as women have an easier time marrying into wealth) it's 76%.
I used to be more aligned with what you're saying. An eye opening paper for me was this [2]. I ran into that when actually searching information on the chiseling out of the middle class. And that paper does describe that. In 1979 the middle class controlled 46% of all income, and the upper/rich classes controlled 30%. Today (well at least today as of 2014) the rich and upper class control 63% with the middle class left with 26%. There's even been a chiseling out of the middle class as a whole declining from 38.8% of society to 32% of society.
But the eye opener is this. This is the change in the size of each economic group between 1979 and 2014:
- Rich: 0.1% -> 1.8%
- Upper Middle Class: 12.9% -> 29.4%
- Middle Class: 38.8% -> 32%
- Lower Middle Class: 23.9% -> 17.1%
- Poor or Near-Poor: 24.3% -> 19.8%
If you're concerned that partisan bias may be tilting those numbers (as such figures are certainly subject to a variety of different interpretations), wiki has a section on the political stance of the Urban Institute [3]. Beyond that, that paper is quite readable and their methodology very transparent. It's extremely eye opening.
I'm guessing whoever wrote this hasn't grown up poor/discriminated against, didn't beat their peers and find themselves never-the-less judged/ousted because they "weren't of the right background/proper means/cultural fit".
And remember, all it takes is a few key leaders. And that includes those who may have been part of the system but were unjustly ousted...(or those who just think they are getting a wiff of the winds of change and want to be on the right side)
/I'm not making any actual prediction of revolution the US incidentally. I'd be inclined against any theories of imminent revolution. Just pointing out that simple theories of "it wouldn't happen here because of our fake-meritocracy" are pretty off the mark.