This article discusses the legitimacy of those public policies which replicates distributional impact economic inequalities already present in society. It tries to rebut the presumption that these mechanisms are the result of meritocratic rewards and punishments they assign a function of effort or virtue. Thus, in order to verify the negligible importance of meritocracy to explain socioeconomic stratification in unequal societies, and glimpse if you use the inequality of opportunity has a significant role in its etiology, will address the relationship between educational achievement and socioeconomic background, based on the study of the Argentine case.