[systemvoltage]

I partial agree, it's complex. Meritocracy is better than ever and most things in life can be directly deduced to initiative, work ethics, personal drive, ambition and ability to have self control. There is an amazing book "Deep Work" that goes in-depth the work ethics of successful people.

You also left out the biggest and the most important luck factor - Physical attractiveness. There are several studies in the field of psychology to mundane daily anecdotal evidence of how attractive people have a lottery ticket. I don't see this as a negative thing - genetic diversity is literally how human's evolve and natural selection works.