I both agree and disagree with this. You're right that in a lot of places in western society (though not all) you can become pretty successful through good str

I both agree and disagree with this. You're right that in a lot of places in western society (though not all) you can become pretty successful through good strategy and some hard work as you've described. But that's actually quite hard to do! Plenty of things in life can get in the way and more importantly having a good life strategy requires a level of knowledge not available to many. The reason so many entrepreneurs come from moderately well off backgrounds is that the middle class is far far better at teaching their kids the strategies to success than those less well off. The upper class are even better and can use their money and access to take shortcuts not available to the rest of us. If you're a working class kids whose family have never been to college or who hasn't been exposed to the 'professional class' you might have no idea how to get there and thus have no idea that you could get there. There are plenty of super smart kids from lower socio-economic backgrounds who would never even consider going to uni for a 'reasonable degree' because no ones implied it was possible for them.