I was watching a sociologist author on CSPAN being interviewed by Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of facebook. She was discussing a book/study she had completed of more than 50 families of different income levels. Her opinion was typical for most leftists. Basically, she thinks your economic outcome is decided by the system\class and little if anything is decided by your personal character or hard work. Of course it is lot easier to run a race if you are given a big head-start, but I do think that personal traits and hard work determine if you end up gaining or losing ground from where you started. So, hard work and determination do matter despite what leftists say.
The harder we work, the luckier we get.
We all know stories of rich kids who blow their family trust funds for a variety of reasons.
Hard and smart work gives one a chance to be successful .