Here is something that I found a week or two ago for you to chew on. Over half of all US wealth is not earned but inherited:

According to a report summarized recently in the Washington Post, “The wealthiest 1 percent of American households own 40 percent of the country's wealth.”

It’s likely that about 25% of all wealth in the US is inherited of the top 1%. I strongly suspect the relationship is even more egregious at the level of the top 0.1% and top 0.01%.

It’s hard to argue that the US is at all a meritocracy when the starting points are so distorted.