?Basically all bistiza is saying is that most people have to work if they want food, shelter, and other basic essentials of life. I'd love to hear him propose a system in which this would NOT be true.
I'm not saying people shouldn't have to work; I'm merely proposing the current system actually rewards many people for working LESS than others. For example, the structure of most businesses in modern American capitalism is to make income incredibly top heavy, with executives who make decisions making much much more than those who actually produce the majority of work effort for the business. The people on the bottom of the "ladder" are working just as hard or harder than those at the top, and yet there is this incredible pay disparity. Perhaps those at the top should earn a bit more, depending upon what they bring to the table in terms of skills, abilities, experience, education, etc. It just shouldn't be what it is now in most cases.
This kind of structure doesn't usually inspire people to work harder than is necessary to keep their jobs (unless they already have some other motivation which is personal to them). People are sold that capitalism inspires people to be innovative and work hard, but this is largely mitigated because of the non-linear relationship between hard work and success.
A better structure would be to allow employees to become more empowered and actually take pride in the success of the company. You do this by giving them an ownership stake, so that they get more money in their pockets when the company makes more, giving them direct incentive to want to be more productive. When all they see if the executives and owners make more if they produce more and the company makes more profits, they don't care (and if they're smart, they know they are getting ****ed over). But if they see an increase in their own paychecks when the company makes more, they sure have motivation to try to make that happen. It also inspires more team work and a feeling of being valued, which cannot be overstated.
Doing this in the midst of the present economy would also allow your company to have the pick of who it wanted, because everyone would want to work for a company like this.
I'm as liberal as they come and I get that business has beaten the **** out of labor over the last 30 years
I'm not sure what being liberal has to do with any of this.
But yes, those who work hard are taking the raw end of the deal on a continuous basis. I agree with that.
I'm fine with the answer of "you made better choices than her" and that might make sense.
I am personally NOT fine with giving that as an answer of why your life situation is better than this girl's in the example given.
We don't know her circumstances (and only you know yours), but it is possible she made BETTER choices than you did and still ended up in a worse situation. That is what modern American capitalism does. It's a cruel machine designed to make more money for the wealthy while holding everyone else down with the promise that if they work hard and do what the wealthy say they may too be able to rise up and become part of the wealthy elite so they too can hold others down to try to get more money for themselves.
This idea that wealthy people somehow make better choices, are smarter, work harder, etc. isn't always true (as I've been saying for some time now). It's part of the propaganda everyone else is supposed to believe - that the wealthy somehow "deserve" their wealth and everyone else "deserves" whatever they have or the lack of it. It's simply not true.
Let's dispel some of these myths right now:
Hard work does NOT translate into wealth in anything close to a linear fashion.
No one "deserves" their wealth or lack thereof based on anything they have done (even though what they have done can obviously contribute to it).
The current capitalist system is NOT the best economic system for everyone or even most people. It also does NOT serve as the best model to inspire people to work hard or be productive (as I stated above in this post).