Speaking personally, having "skin in the game" matters very little to me when it comes to resenting those who have achieved great wealth. What matters to me is

Speaking personally, having "skin in the game" matters very little to me when it comes to resenting those who have achieved great wealth. What matters to me is someone's effect on the rest of society. It matters how someone made their money but it also matters who else benefitted from that person's success and who else suffered. For instance, I don't begrudge Larry Page or Sergei Brin their billions. Neither had much skin in the game, they were just pursuing a project they were passionate about after college, largely using someone else's money. Had they failed, they'd likely have incurred some opportunity costs of not having worked a more lucrative job, but wouldn't have lost much else. But what makes their wealth acceptable to me is what they created. Google has made my life and billions of other people's lives easier. Contrast this with a hedge fund manager who's also a billionaire or a Mitt Romney -esque corporate raider who doesn't create anything and often leaves human misery in their wake. These billions are often made while incurring far more risk than that borne by the creative types and, yet, I still find their wealth the more detestable. Buddhists have the concept of "right livelihood" that followers are supposed to adhere to. And it's always resonated with me. Whether or not one gets rich is independent of what truly matters...how much your life and work benefit others. I don't dislike people for being rich, I dislike people for living their lives in service only to themselves. Having "skin in the game" is a tangential property that is meaningless to me on its own.