When someone tells you they got rich through hard work...

[hueymahl]

71. I'm torn about this thread

On the one hand, when most people talk about working hard, what they really mean is they worked smart and hard and made consistently good decisions and made the best of their opportunities. I could dig ditches my whole life (or work in in a sweat-shop the like the OP's post), but I would never get rich, because that is not very smart.

And it is not all luck, like some posters assert. Luck certainly plays a role, and you almost have to stay healthy, but if you continue to do the right thing, you tend to make your own luck. And just so we are clear, I am talking about generically rich. Say top 10%. The ultra-wealthy, that usually has a lot of other external factors involved, especially inherited money.

On the other hand, I completely agree that everyone's success, no matter how modest, is built upon society's wealth built up over thousands of years. NO ONE "started from scratch". Even the penniless immigrant is standing on the shoulders of the billions who have come before her and bestowed our current societal riches upon her and her generation.

But when folks start to get so egocentric that they become dismissive of those people and institutions that have helped them, I have a problem. There are too many of that type.

Wealth is an incredibly complicated topic.