In the era before Boomers remade our economy, performance basically determined position. The guy who packed more mouse traps at the factory got a promotion over the guy who didn’t.
Boomers switched the economy from a more industrial capitalism to a financial form of capitalism where everything is based on favoritism. They slowly did away with the ladder where people could work their way up. They replaced that with third world labor, while making the office more openly favoritist.
As I stress though, third world labor is used only for the more entry level positions, not for the “experienced” (boomer dominated) positions.