Economic: Meritocracy?

One of the most accepted theories(which remains to be proven) within Singapore other than that of Darwin's Theory of Evolution, is the theory that Singapore is a meritocratic society. It remains a theory or even less - an assertion because it is yet to be proven. Till its proven empirically or scientifically or by intuition, it is not rational to accept the notion that Singapore is meritocratic. This is especially so when the fundamental requirement for meritocracy to exist in Singapore is violated. That is, for Singapore to be a meritocratic society it requires to have income inequality to be insignificant. But income inequality is very significant in Singapore. The difference between the top 20% income earners and bottom 20% income earners in Singapore is about 21 times. Also 70% are working class. Therefore in light of this economic reality, unless we can prove Meritocracy exists or does not exist, any assertion will remain to be just a political statement.