As someone that grew up in Europe and immigrated to the US I can tell that at least from what I see this is largely true (that economic mobility is much smaller

As someone that grew up in Europe and immigrated to the US I can tell that at least from what I see this is largely true (that economic mobility is much smaller in Europe vs US). I do not know if that's the case statistically but simply comparing the attitude, ambitions and how much their financial situation improved of most of the people I knew back in Europe vs the people I met in the US it's obviously a large difference. And ironically I think it has a lot to do with the "brainwashing" you're talking about, if you tell people often enough that they can become anyone and do anything then a higher percentage of those people will try to get above their means which (likely?) means a higher percentage will actually manage to do so vs societies where they grow up being told that they should just aim for a government job (since it's stable and you can hold such a job for the entire life). Of course most people will still fail and of course not having a good social blanket means many people in the US needlessly suffer. But that said I still think there are a lot more people here that believe they can make it to the top and do their best to get there. It's a different mentality. And another observation that makes this obvious to me is the sheer amount of options/companies here for every little product and service vs back in Europe. Which was quite overwhelming when moving to the US but it is a good problem to have, more options and choices is always good IMO.