Equality in society does not account for the person who WILL NOT. Most people are not hyper-rich. Out of the "well-to-do" people I know, only a few have not worked very hard to be where they are financially. I wouldn't tell them, "Sorry Bill, I know you spent eight to ten years of your life studying, not sleeping, and on-call to work at this level, but you are going to have to accept the same payoff as Sam, who didn't want to bother with studying so he washes my car." I also know more people than I would like who are completely content to sit back and live off the fat. Here is a good example; Joe is trying to defend his friend to me. "He is the most generous guy I know!" he says. "Just the other day he used his own food-stamps to buy groceries for someone else." *head slap* I just sat there with my mouth open. True story. This doesn't mean that even the meanest job isn't valuable or that the person who CAN'T is any less valuable of a human being than the person who DOES. But there are people who WONT, who will always find a loophole that leaves everyone else around them with more weight to bear. For a society to be equal, each person needs to share the same values and have the same worldview. We are far far too fond of our own opinions for that to happen. The best we can do...is be the best we can and encourage others to do the same. To act selflessly, to be kind, just, and all those other virtues that you've got to work to acquire and then hope someone else follows our example.
That's true, Nikki. I know a number of people who are very well off. With the exception of two of them, they didn't come from families that were well off. Many of them were quite poor and worked very hard when friends around them were not in order to get to where they are. But you can't escape the sophomoric notion that rich=bad, it seems.
