I’m saying that people fail to do well in society for reasons which have nothing to do with how smart they are, how good they are, how hard they work, how much intrinsic worth they have as a person, and so on. Society simply rewards some people more than others, for reasons which have nothing to do with any virtue on the part of the persons concerned.
Who is of more value to the world — the corporate lawyer who spends his time initiating East Texas patent driving trollies cases, or the schoolteacher who tries to teach science and math to inner city kids? I guarantee the lawyer is more generously rewarded by society.
Life isn’t fair. Say it like that and everyone agrees. But it’s just another way of saying that rich people aren’t rich because they’re super awesome or hard working; there’s a lot of luck involved.
I mean, look at Bill Gates. Plenty of better programmers have worked harder than he did at the start of his career. Maybe they didn’t have $1m-a-year trust funds to let them drop out of college and pursue setting up their own company without risking homelessness. Maybe they didn’t have a parent who had contacts and could get them their first big business deal even though they had no product.
And I haven’t even gotten into structural inequality, racism, sexism, and other barriers to people being paid what they’re worth.
