Because, not to be idealistic, but America is supposed to be the land of opportunity. There are no kings, or lords. Every person is equal in the eyes of the law, and the free market is the decider. If we're abdicating that position, and just wanna accept that the rich get everything and everyone else fights for their scraps, well, I mean, everyone's gotta have an ethos, I guess.

I agree with those ideals, but this is like saying that only nepo-babies are likely to be professional basket weavers.

I don't see that as a meaningful bifurcation of kings and lords. Some people can afford the 99.9999% probability risk of investing 15 - 20 years of ultra-intensive training and coming up with literally no career and no method of adding value to their community that's even remotely correlated to the level of investment in their training. Most people cannot.

It is good if that is as few people as possible. And it is good if that person isn't literally starving afterwards (i.e. can just collect rent from their parents' accounts)