What an odd world view. Of course the priviliged have greater social obligations, because they are greater benefactors of life. We're all equal under the law but that doesn't mean that those with greater means shouldn't have greater impacts on society.
Meritocracy is often a buzzword of the elite to avoid paying their fair share.
also the rich absolutely _do_ owe society at large something: taxes. a thing which, as you get richer, it apparently becomes optional due to financial engineering
If I were to nitpick, I would say that they try to move to a idealised version of the US that never quite existed. This romanticised version has been pervasively depicted in mass consumption media for many decades.
More meaningful perhaps would be to count the immigrants from developed countries and immigrants that earn above the median in their respective countries and/or go to the US and earn above the American median.
There are a lot of desperate people in the world right now who’ll take extreme action to escape their immediate predicaments, such as risking a Mediterranean crossing from Northern Africa to Europe.
citation needed on that last claim. do you have universal healthcare free at point of service? do you have a healthy supply of public housing? do you let children starve, through no fault of their own but the circumstances of their birth? do you engage is ears of choice and murder 100+ innocent children in a primary school on the first day of the conflict?
the answer to some of these questions should be yes, and others should be no, if you're going to make the claim that the United States of America is the "Greatest Country on Earth, Ever".
Meritocracy is often a buzzword of the elite to avoid paying their fair share.