Nonsense. There are hundreds of people in EACH potato country who made legitimate fortunes and thousands more who are simply well-off, which is enough in my book. Being successful doesn't necessarily mean being a billionaire.
I'm not truly wealthy by any measure but I'm not trying to explain it with excuses about lack of opportunities.
My issue with that argument is that I
am wealthy by most standards (not billionaire rich list stuff, but I've got a few million dollars worth of residential and commercial property, a good income, and only about $350,000 in mortgages on those properties), and I'm lazy as absolute fuck. I'm so lazy that I'm typing this during working hours. When I was a lawyer, I was even lazier. And about 95% of my income doesn't even come from my job, but from rental income - I'm literally a rent-seeker.
I didn't go to university because I worked hard - I went to university so I didn't
have to work hard! Even when I earnt my initial money, it was by sitting on my ass in an office. Meanwhile, the guy that cleans my office earns fuckall while dong a far more onerous job.
One of my tenants is a plumbing business. They put their hands in shit for a living, and pay me money for the privilege of having my agent deposit money in my account each month. Sure, the agent also arranges repairs and care for the facilities, but I don't do any of that shit, and given that I just incorporate the cost into the rent I'm charging them, I'm not even paying for it.
I don't own any low-income area properties, because I prioritise capital gains over having consistent rental income, but if I did, how the fuck could you say that I would be working harder than some toilet cleaner or bricklayer's assistant who was paying me rent?
Me, and whole class of people like me, make money by oligopolising land and then collecting rent from people who actually work hard. They're working hard, I'm getting their money. 100% of the productive contribution is theirs.
And apparently I'm a hard-working entrepeneur who builds this fucking nation.