I disagree because this predicate doesn't take in account the backpressure of mediocracy. A mediocracy is when mostly incompetent people are dominating and pushing back people with merit to preserve their domination, culture, ... The academic example is Galileo Galilei. US citizen should also look at the history of their own country and the way they handled black people. "If they were at the bottom (slaves) it's because they deserve to be there" ? This is mediocracy !
While the Galileo example is interesting, the "black people" one is not. The application of actual force (IE whipping people, beating them, lynching them, etc) is not really something normally applied in business place itself (though there are businesses that seem to apply force to the external environment in order to make their business dominate).
For example, I can't think of any business that is having gladiator style fights to the death whose real purpose is to keep the mail room employees killing each other instead of killing the CEO. Nor can I think of a business where the mail room employees are literally being beaten or lynched in an attempt by the CEOs to keep them down.
A better example of your "mediocracy", would, IMHO, be a workplace where the CEO is grooming their child (or execs play favorites, etc) to take over despite the fact that the mail room guy may be a better choice.
However, it's not clear why in this model, after the child takes over, the business wouldn't fail relative to other, better businesses if the child is really that mediocre at it.
