Sure, it's this idea of the individual, this idea that the wealthy are defacto super hero's that can do nothing wrong. The fact is people generally that do very well...like Warren Buffet will tell you that the system is what allows people to do well. This idea that Americans or even wealthy Americans are so much smarter, hard working etc than any other group in the world is ridiculous. The fact is, if you're wealthy in America a large part is the structure built over centuries of hard work by Americans. From the Chinese immigrant that built the railroads, the Irish immigrants building the Erie Canal, the interstate railroad system, the wealth accumulated in the United States by centuries of hardwork from Americans in all classes.
There's also this fallacy of easily transferable skills. The fact is...skills are not transferable and some skills are better rewarded than others. If you can throw a football 70 yards with pinpoint accuracy, work diligently in the film room to study the other team...that doesn't mean you can be a Wall Street broker. Just like the idea that someone is a Wall Street broker will walk into a classroom and be a great teacher. There are great teachers that spend lots of time on perfecting their abilities. That doesn't mean they will make even a good ditch digger. Productivity is gained from experience and this idea that if you're a Wall Street broker you're compensated for working harder than everybody is just a fallacy. You're compensated because our system is constructed in a way that skills dealing with Capital are highly rewarded.
Hard work and discipline are everywhere, from the lower class to the highest class. This idea that all lower class individuals are lazy grifters and all higher income individuals are super humans is.....basically ridiculous idea.
I'm reading the new Steve Jobs bio, and within 100 pages you see how he benefited from growing up in an Area where DoD research is taking place. You see that he benefited from having neighbors that were engineers working in ground breaking research. He talks about how he dealt with kids at a summer job and lacked patience and wanted to smack the kids. He would be an atrocious teacher. He has a nack for electrionics. He's hard working, innovative, but benefited from a system that coupled what he had a knack for with the means to explore that knack. He mentions multiple times how he could of ended up in jail if he wouldn't of had some influences in his life that ended up positive.