How much of “Luck” in one’s life is due to one’s economic status?
I’m tired of everyone saying it’s all about intelligence and hard work because it’s not. Or one’s “mindset.” You can have the most “positive mindset” in the world, but if you’re born in the slums of India, or in the deserts Africa, or in Gaza- your life is pretty much screwed. Telling us life is all due to how smart or how hard you work or your mindset is just an excuse for ppl to tell you the reason you “failed” is bc of you, and NOT bc of systemic issues like classism.
Would Bill Gates be Bill Gates if his parents were poor? Would he have built MS?
Would Elon Musk be Elon Musk has his father not been involved with Emerald mines and of selling Emeralds? I doubt it.
Everyone loves to believe in the “self-made man.” But there is no successful person that is truly “self-made.” All had some kind of help. Sure, SOME had talent to propel them out of poverty, but that is the rare exception rather than the norm. Life is less about hard work and intelligence than being born to the right parents/economic background. Upward social mobility- while not impossible- is largely improbably, especially going from poor to rich or even poor to middle class.
No one wants to admit they were born lucky (though Bill Gates actually has admitted he was lucky to be born to a well off family and does actually attribute that to his success. He’s a douchebag and evil, but at least he acknowledges that ). It’s always “I got there through hard work” or “I got there on my own.” Yeah, nah, no you didn’t. You had help. Almost everyone who is middle class or upper class had help.
3 comments
Economic status at birth is a part of luck not the other way around. Most non-Americans (eg immigrants) can agree that luck and factors beyond one’s control can have huge effects on one’s life. I think it’s a grave disservice and injustice to kids how US society (media, politicians, educators, parents) kept preaching for a long time that everything comes down to your own effort or choices. This may be suited for people born without major disadvantages and need a little prodding to get motivated. But it’s at the expense of kids who face serious struggles growing up and are therefore misled, simply because society wants to feel good about itself and doesn’t care about edge cases that are fewer in number.
It’s also asymmetric in the sense that while good luck doesn’t necessarily make you successful, bad luck more likely than not ruins you. This is what many people with privilege try to dismiss by saying wealth doesn’t matter, beauty doesn’t matter, intelligence doesn’t matter, influence or connections don’t matter etc, but being poor/ugly/dumb (below average) can definitely matter a lot, maybe not so much being dumb in certain situations in America judging from the way things are going.
Lol, in America, clearly one does not even need to have half a brain cell to be rich/successful/well off.
Hard work and talent does not correlate with success at all in America. It’s one of the biggest lies we were told / shoved down our throats.
We are told this lie by corporate America bc that way they can blame the individual for not being successful enough, or not having enough money to pay for rent food etc. To have us believe this myth instead of realizing all our ills are due to corporations not paying us enough. But oh no, blame the individual so the masses get distracted and do not rise up and overthrow the oligarchy. Which btw, this tactic is working beautifully. So beautifully that many ppl have bought into the myth that wage increases or minimum wages are a BAD thing and they vote against their own best interests.
Sigh. I have ZERO hope in humanity. -_-