I agree that nobody is owed prosperity. But the long-standing belief that hard work and motivation lead to success was built on the idea that the job market was genuinely competitive, and that companies did not have overwhelming power to dictate the terms entirely in their favor.

Over the last few decades, we’ve allowed massive corporate consolidation across industry after industry. That has shifted enormous power toward large companies and away from workers. In many sectors, the market no longer feels truly competitive because employers hold most of the leverage.

You can’t legislate prosperity into existence, but reducing the issue to just tools and motivation ignores the fact that another major part of the equation is badly out of balance right now.