I think some degree of meritocracy (i.e. recognition of a skills hierarchy) is necessary for human advancement, but as it currently stands it's impossible to separate that out from wealth privilege. If I had the answer, I'd make sure to tell everybody.

There's a million other processes by which wealth favours the accumulation of wealth, and it's largely this "logic of capital" that results in the formation of class hierarchies and entrenched inequality/capital enclaves.

That's probably secondary to geography in the first instance, e.g. wealth in the form of agricultural surpluses and the use of grain as a fungible commodity and proto-currency.

At this point a huge amount of wealth redistribution seems like a good start, and if it all flows back to the top, which I'd expect it to, then it'll just need redistributing again.