The takeaway is not that you shouldn't make efforts to gain wealth, it's that we tend to ascribe all kinds of "hard work" and "genius" properties to the rich, a

The takeaway is not that you shouldn't make efforts to gain wealth, it's that we tend to ascribe all kinds of "hard work" and "genius" properties to the rich, and we can't help attaching some sort of virtue to people with money and disdain for people who don't have it. Also, this fantasy of "hard work gets you further" significantly blocks our society's ability to help the poor, because so much bogus morality gets wrapped up in our attempts to lift people out of poverty (see: "Welfare queens" etc etc etc).