The “rich”, IMO, also have often taken BIG risks in their lives, such as in investing in or building up businesses, etc., in which they could have lost everything.
Exactly, it's ambition that is the driver. Sure once you're rich you don't have to work as hard. And as you gain experience you learn to work smarter, not harder. The biggest "gap" is the ambition gap. Some people are happy to just take whatever crumbs get thrown their way, others want more. And in a healthy society wealth and ambition should parallel each other.
I think the same way. To say that the “rich” don’t work is just wrong. Oh sure, there are those that don’t, through inheritance mainly but SOMEONE at SOME POINT had to work to get that money amassed. It just doesn’t fall in their laps. They start a company, put in long hours and take a lot of risks to build that company and make it profitable. The kids today think that they need to come out of college with a house/car/checking account that their parents have. They don’t think about the fact that mom and dad are married 30+ years and have worked to build up what they as their children have always taken for granted. Mom and Dad needed to teach kiddo some hard lessons.
. . . so the reality is that the people who become rich think they have to become rich.Likewise the people who stay in the bottom of the heap do not feel driven to become rich.