The pervasive myth that hard work == wealth needs to die. Every people I have met in my life wanted to have a shot at a decent life and would have put the necessary work for a decent wage.
The word lazy should be identified as what it really is: a pejorative.
The myth is so pervasive because it's propagated by people with more wealth against people with less of it, and the conflict of interest prevents anyone from giving it up.
Everyone wants to feel better about themselves and the easiest way is to look down on someone who has less. Less "whatever" really, people always find something that they think makes them better, money is just the obvious choice because society slowly associated money with success. It doesn't matter if the wealth came from their parents, or luck, they can still pretend it makes them better.
It's one of those situations where everyone's in on it. The poor really haven't much else to go on and they'll take this little boost in their standing, the rich are tempted to think they so much better than most other people. Everyone in between sits somewhere on that scale.
I think it's easy to see: (1) A simplified variation of it is true (namely, that if effort1 > effort2 then outcome(env, effort1) >= outcome(env, effort2) for any fixed environment env); (2) It flatters those who have achieved high outcomes, regardless of how much effort they put in.
There are a lot of factors to getting wealthy. Most of them are out of your control. Hard work happens to be one that is in your control. Its not like you can choose to be born to different parents or a different place.
But its still not magic. It doesn't guarantee anything. Worst of all its useless if the work is directed to the wrong ends.
Hard work is often necessary but not sufficient. You can work very hard moving a pile of sand with a pair of tweezers but you’re not going to get wealthy doing that.
The people who simply think that because they worked hard wealth should just come to them are going to remain confused until they figure out that what you work on is also important.
How about hard work + courage ? Without ability to take risk and potential failure it is very difficult to change your economic level. It is very naive to think that doing the same thing everyday will somehow change your economic level.
> The pervasive myth that hard work == wealth needs to die.
The purpose of the concept is to push kids from a young age to be industrious. You are much less likely to become wealthy if you sit around doing the bare minimum.
Putting in an significant effort isn't a guarantee, but it does increase your chances from whatever the baseline is given your context.
The concept doesn't claim that wealthy people all worked hard; everyone knows you can be wealthy without having worked at all, such as through inheritance or the lottery!
You mischaracterized my argument, people aren't "lazy" by default. Most people that walks the earth wants to explore, create and socialize. But you seem to imply that kids would otherwise "sit around and do the bare minimum" if not pushed from a young age to be industrious. This is ludicrous.
There are way more empirical evidence that luck plays a much bigger role in wealth creation than effort.
> There are way more empirical evidence that luck plays a much bigger role in wealth creation than effort.
my point isn't that when you put in effort you WILL create wealth. my point also isn't that luck plays a bigger role than effort (though, there's no empirical evidence for that assertion). my point also isn't that if you're poorer you didn't put in effort.
my point is: when you put in effort, you increase the surface area for luck.
put differently: if you don't think putting in effort increases your chances and it is mostly luck, why put in effort at all? luck will just find your door, after all, and if it doesn't, oh well.
And that's why this concept (your "myth") has value and should not die.
> I don't understand why you can't see my argument for what it is: People work hard on their own merit.
I see. You're saying people either work hard or don't (from within), rather than what their parents or teachers or peers say.
Hard to argue with that.
At the same time, I am glad my parents instilled in me being a hard worker in whatever I chose because I am pretty confident it has made a huge difference in my success.
I would not concede that some people aren’t lazy, however.
The word lazy should be identified as what it really is: a pejorative.