Well let's ask a basic question. What are you referring to when you say Capitalism? The economic model? The Liberal State? Neo-Liberalism?

I'm referring to regulated market capitalism

i would give it the following characteristics
1. generalized private ownership of capital
2. generalized wage labor (most people sell their labor to property owners)
3. generalized production for exchange (goods are generally produced to be sold)
4. capital is sovereign, capital owned is the primary determinant of political power

but you could call systems that don't have the fourth aspect "state capitalist"

like in nazi germany or south korea or japan pre-liberalization

or the prc, though in the prc private ownership and state ownership are roughly equal

you could also add capital accumulation that is the product of production for exchange

Alright. I will agree with June that within the capitalist system there is the monopolization of a certain kind of capital that can lead to somewhat rigid hirearchies.

No one is going to make Bill Gates poor any time soon.

No matter how good their product is.

social mobility isn't really my contention with it

What is your contention then?

the incentives associated with it

a less "meritorious" can be superior to a more meritorious one if the incentives associated with it are better

"better" ha
Good luck with figuring out what's "better"

well i mean sure that can be difficult

but unless you're just apathetic to what hierarchies there are and/or how you would like them to be you have some conception of what is better

so like if i were to compare a system wherein the highest authority is embodied by a hereditary monarch as opposed to capital and by extension those who hold the most of it

the latter might be more meritorious

in the sense that the people who comprise it are probably going to be on average better capitalists than the monarch would be a statesman

however the incentives associated with the former are arguably better

I mean if you place meritocracy as the highest value... I really don't

because in that situation the monarch is incentivized to care about the health of the sovereign as a whole and in the long term as well

In theory perhaps.

though i would add a caveat that in an absolute monarchy at least the incentives can become perverse if the monarch is too incompetent

But there is a reason why Monarchies fell.

but i mean of course we aren't subject to absolute rule by capital either

so a more fitting comparison would be a monarchy similar to say morocco

i think it's because they were dealt two major blows

Undoubtedly so, however the monarchy system's fatal flaw is the idea that everyone in the line of descendants upholds the health of the sovereignty as a whole. It has no ability to correct for incompetence in the event of a terrible leader by awarding authority based solely upon heredity.

one, from the ascent of capitalism, the bourgeoisie, and liberalism

and then from WW1

and perhaps you could say WW2 to an extent as well

sure i agree with that

to an extent at least

Yes. Nepotism would be the fall to a system that devalues meritocracy.

an elective monarchy might be preferable

but the thing is is that nepotism is restricted

because it's not in the interests of the monarch to allow for the health of the institutions that support the sovereign to be compromised by such things

and often they have a fair degree of authority to stamp out such things

i mean of course they might be nepotistic toward their family