If you define hard work as intellectually challenging work, there absolutely is a strong link between hard work and wealth in China. Even the corrupt bureaucrats have to pass a difficult exam to become bureaucrats.
Which one and why is cheating nepotism not as widespread as with everything else? In a company or functioning democracy in competition, if you nepotism, you kill the company..
> Only if the person picked via nepotism isn’t competent.
It'd be interesting to know how much this phenomenon would explain the stability of otherwise culturally ossified regimes that stood for four or five centuries before collapsing, where government was built almost entirely out of extreme nepotism in which the ruling potentate had 50 or 60 kids to choose from, and thus had a shot at picking the most capable from the, er, top of the class.
Or the most ambitious /ruthless pick themselves, taking the old man and/or their dangerously competitive siblings out of the picture.
Either way there is a little more competition involved then what we normally think of with a modern family unit.
No drugs at private schools? The machinery catering to wealthy parents is good at 3 things, placatting parents, preventing scandals, creating interelite connections. It's not good at educating, no matter how expensive. There is simply put absolutely no incentives to work