[zdw]

Is luck a good criteria for some people having more and other less?

At the very high end (top 10, 1, 0.1 percent of incomes), is progressive taxation on income a tax on lucky breaks more than any other factors?

(other factors = intelligence, hard work, lack of bad luck like disasters, unexpected medical bills, etc.)

[r_smart]

|other factors = intelligence, hard work, lack of bad luck like disasters, unexpected medical bills, etc

How many of those can you attribute to luck? Winning the genetic lottery is one of the best things you can hope for. You have no control over it, and it greatly influences your outcomes. Born stupid and ugly? Tough luck, maybe in another life.

[skookumchuck]

If you want to be the best cyclist in the world, training for it isn't enough, you need that extra 1% advantage genetics.

But for most everything else in life, you can be plenty good at what you want to do if you're willing to train for it. You don't have to be the best programmer in the world to make quite a good living by programming. It's hardly necessary to be the best businessman ever to run a good business. Etc.

Oh, and on the internet, you can be ugly as a mud brick and it won't have one iota of influence over your success or failure.

Maybe take inventory and look at what you can do, rather than obsessing about not looking like Keanu Reeves. Even so, Peter Dinklage, Danny DeVito, Kathy Bates, Bette Davis, are not the beautiful people. I've met a few movie actors in person, and without the makeup, lighting, and director, they look like ordinary schmucks.

[r_smart]

I think you missed the point my post. I'm not one of the people on this board that like to decry success as just being a principle of luck, like it's some kind of lottery.

We're specifically talking about the wealthiest people in the world. The people who got that 1% advantage. I apparently made a mistake in describing those people as lucky (just meaning that there are only a handful of people that will sit at the top, so being one of those people is lucky; it's against the odds).

My whole argument is you can't just take their shit because you want it, and them having a lot of shit isn't a sign that they've done something wrong that allows you to trample on their rights. I think people concerned about inequality have lost the plot. Instead of helping people pull themselves up, they focus on taking from those at the top. Granted, we'll all be more equal financially, but it's hardly a utopian outcome, and no one's lot will be improved, only worsened.