People have agency but one anecdote of a co-worker with bad judgment does not suddenly make everyone stuck in a miserable situation through no fault of their own, suddenly better.
It's much easier for people to take responsibility for their situation if they're at least middle class.
Personal responsibility helps, but it's not a society wide solution.
That's why our cars are made of metal and have a million systems to prevent and alleviate crashes. Our planes have checklists 10 feet long before they take off.
People have agency and that agency should be helped. Look at Sweden, where there are a ton of what the US would call "handouts", and Sweden, as a result, has one of the highest per capita rates of entrepreneurship. Turns out, yeah, some people just sit on their butts all day long if you give them money, but statistically, most people want to be productive. And at the end of the day, you're better off.
Everything has a cost, especially time. They may have agency to improve their situation, but the time scale to do so (due to lack of savings, location, or whatever) may be ridiculous. People also have incomplete information; they could burn their resources to change your situation over the course of a decade and ultimately end up in a far worse situation. It only takes a few cycles of this for someone's time to actually run out. Agency is necessary but insufficient.
"Free" is not a boolean. There are myriad constraints in life that prevent a person from being fully responsible for his or her situation (while of course I concede that "everything is outside my control" is also an untenable position to have). Obviously improving your life (materially/financially speaking) requires many things: at the very least abilities and luck, and often: education, pre-existing wealth, being clear from physical disabilities and mental disorders, a stable family situation with no significant dependents, etc.
Pinning everything on the individual, and furthermore on reasons for which the individual bears sole responsibility, is a major fallacy of our society.
Start from the premise that you do have agency, and you'll find there's a heluva lot you can do.
Remember,"lucky" people make their own luck, and are good at putting themselves in a position where luck can find them. "Luck" also often appears disguised as work.
> Remember,"lucky" people make their own luck, and are good at putting themselves in a position where luck can find them. "Luck" also often appears disguised as work.
This is obviously not true. I don't even know how to even begin to argue this point, it is patently obvious that luck plays a major factor in everything you do, whether you recognize it or not.
Unfortunately, nobody does likes to recognize that the status they have is because of (wholly or partially) luck :) That's why rulers invented the divine right of kings (or the Mandate of Heaven or the deification of Roman Emperors or what have you), and that's why modern capitalists insist on the "self-made man" mythos.
PS: Before anybody calls me a lazy bum waiting for handouts or some similar variation, I am pretty successful. I also recognize that while I did work hard and made sacrifices, a large part of it is down to luck: I was in the right places at the right times, met the right people, made decisions on impulse that turned out to work out great. Nevermind the overarching stuff: I was born in a middle-class family in a peaceful and stable country, I could go to school and have reasonably good teachers, I was never hungry or cold or sick or unloved, my parents supported me financially until I was 25 and started to make my own money.
By the way, your ancestors chose to come to America. They chose to work their way into the middle class. Your parents chose to raise you as best they could. You chose to take advantage of the schools. US citizens chose to create a peaceful and stable country (America was a pretty violent place before the US.)
> This is obviously not true. I don't even know how to even begin to argue this point, it is patently obvious that luck plays a major factor in everything you do, whether you recognize it or not.
The details of one's life are luck. But the overall arch is not luck - you get to pick it. For example, who you meet and marry is luck. However, enabling luck to find you means 1) making yourself attractive to a potential 2) making efforts to go out and meet others. Sitting in your basement crying about loneliness is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
> modern capitalists insist on the "self-made man" mythos.
Because it's true. People don't start businesses because they're lucky. They make a plan and follow it. That isn't luck.
Where you are in life right now is the sum of a mountain of choices you made.
> I was in the right places at the right times
I.e. you weren't hiding in your basement crying about how unlucky you were.
> nobody does likes to recognize that the status they have is because of (wholly or partially) luck
It's very popular these days to let everyone know about how lucky one is. It's the modern expression of virtuousness. The oddballs are those who dare to say "I did that". You're not a pinball in a pinball machine. You chose your trajectory.
> Where you are in life right now is the sum of a mountain of choices you made.
This is as trivially false as the assertion that the sky is pink (and I've given you concrete examples, which you have not addressed in your reply!). This leads me to believe that this conversation can serve no further productive purpose.
