Meritocratic competitions don't tend to happen under capitalism though.
It does happen, though in an imperfect manner. Companies regularly loose MarketShare when they do not make products that are relevant to the customer.
Fortune 500 company in 1990
FORTUNE 500: 1990 Archive Full List 1-100
Fortune 500 company in 2024
Fortune 500 Full List (2024)
You will see that the list has changed drastically. This is a signal of strong competition at the company level.
The problem is that, when a company goes down (as they inevitably do), the workers suffer. That is why there is need for a strong basic income and other types of social protections and a strong re-skilling and training program to allow transitions to happen. For example, companies may be mandated to give 1 year extra salary to all laid-off workers who are being let go during a downsizing, and have a fund pool for that purpose...etc.
Regarding what may be done to keep capitalist capture of government, we need to do something similar to what was done for separation of church and state. A legislative and constitutional provision that separates government from capitalist influences.