Saw a great example of the way people in capitalist societies tend to reframe their dumb luck as the result of their own hard work and resourcefulness the other day. The winner of the survivalist competition Alone Australia was the only contestant whose location had any fish to eat; all the other nine contestants starved the entire time while he was catching fish easily. When the show was over the winner was like "Well, see, I beat everyone else because I made getting food a priority!" He'd watched the same show we all watched. He saw all the other contestants going to far more extraordinary measures than he ever went to in order to obtain fish and other nourishment, building boats to try to change their luck with the fish, constantly moving their gill nets and trying all kinds of lures and bait and still getting nothing. But he couldn't just say "Yeah I was dropped off at the only decent fishing spot on the show. I got lucky." He had to pretend his fortune was actually the result of his hard work and clever "obtain food" strategy. Our whole stupid society is like that. Those who get lucky say their fortune is the result of their own hard work and cleverness, so they should enjoy tax cuts and generational wealth while the less fortunate are sleeping on the sidewalk. Meanwhile those who've been working their fingers to the bone just to survive in this shitshow know money doesn't actually reward hard work. In our society, money rewards being born into the right family, being cruel enough to exploit the working class, and being sociopathic enough to externalize the costs of industry onto the environment, and being ruthless enough to crush anyone who is in competition with you. Which is why we find ourselves ruled by a plutocratic class of psychopaths today.