I've met some famous people, and I wouldn't say that's entirely the case. I met some before they got famous, and they were genuinely skilled. However, they were so good thanks to their parents fostering their passion and paying for what they needed to improve. A minority of famous people actually grew up poor, but still made it. However, even they benefitted from forces outside their control like living near an artistic community or learning helpful ideas from some random person in their life.

Wealth doesn't hand people success, but it does give them opportunities. They become good at something because they had everything they needed to succeed, while most people don't. I've met rich kids who didn't succeed despite the wealth, although not succeeding as a rich kid is far more forgiving than not succeeding if you're poor.

Few people don't work hard for success, but most people work hard and aren't successful. Being born rich is luck, but so is having physical or mental traits that help you in what you do. Some people grow tall enough to play professional basketball, but most don't. That's not because they deserve it, but because they got lucky. That doesn't take away from basketball players hard work, but they were only able to succeed because chance allowed them to.

[–] Asafum@feddit.nl 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Pretty much the story of my friend. He makes a ton of money as a computer scientist, but he worked for it as far as his education went. He just had a stable family to live with so no rent, he had a father who got him a job which paid like full time but allowed a flexible schedule, paid for his car and phone, etc...

He studied his ass off and was always at the school, but it's because he had the support to be able to do that. We literally live opposite lives in almost every respect. I had none of what he had and so I'm stuck working in a factory living in someone's garage. I couldn't dedicate the time for what I thought I wanted and couldn't risk spending the money to try as I have to move way too often and need a hefty savings for first month, security, broker fee... Being poor is expensive lol

[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

This is why capitalism is anti-meritocracy. It creates inequality of opportunity by design. Like every argument for capitalism, it actually defeats itself if you think critically.

Capitalists are the ones that oppose meritocracy, innovation, consumer choice, personal freedoms, avoiding bureaucracy, efficiency, competition, and human well-being. They're the ones who believe in free lunches, not the people who advocate for social safety nets. They think their system is stable and realistic, but they're the ones living in fantasy land for thinking they can exploit without repercussion.

They're in for a bad time like the rest of us, but they're probably too stupid to understand that it's their fault.