> I have zero idea how I'd "come up" today since all the ladders of "work harder than those next to you and you can slowly improve your lot in life" have largel

> I have zero idea how I'd "come up" today since all the ladders of "work harder than those next to you and you can slowly improve your lot in life" have largely been pulled up You're not wrong about them disappearing. But you're not mentioning factors like how much more top earners are extracting out of the system today versus before. Wealth concentration and wealth disparity have not remained fixed. They certainly haven't gone down. They've gone up, and not even just a little—they've gone way up.