> A claim that most rich people are driven doesn't imply that most poor people are lazy.
If it doesn't imply that poor people are lazy, then what does it imply? That the rich and poor are equally driven, and that something other than effort (luck, inherited wealth, etc) makes the rich rich and the poor poor?
You are missing the difference between a necessary and a sufficient condition. PG's argument is that being driven is necessary, not sufficient. You have to be driven to get rich doing a startup, but being driven on its own is not enough. Thus, you can be driven and poor.
He then weakens his claim even further, as quoted in the parent: "Variation in productivity is far from the only source of economic inequality" such that he admits doing something really productive is not the only source of inequality. So, there is really nothing in there that implies either of things you suggest.
PG strongly implies that wealth can be created by anyone with enough drive and determination. Put another way, if you are not creating and amassing wealth, it's because you don't want it hard enough. To quote from his essay:
"Most people who get rich tend to be fairly driven. Whatever their other flaws, laziness is usually not one of them. Suppose new policies make it hard to make a fortune in finance. Does it seem plausible that the people who currently go into finance to make their fortunes will continue to do so but be content to work for ordinary salaries? The reason they go into finance is not because they love finance but because they want to get rich. If the only way left to get rich is to start startups, they'll start startups. They'll do well at it too, because determination is the main factor in the success of a startup."
No, it doesn't imply that at all. It doesn't say anything about the people that aren't creating and amassing wealth. It simply says, of the people that are getting rich, most of them are driven. The thing you could get away with saying it implies is that you could have all of the other positive attributes and opportunities of those people, but not be driven and fail. It doesn't say anything the people without the opportunity or positive attributes to get rich, because being driven is a necessary condition, not a sufficient condition. [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessity_and_sufficiency ]
From the perspective of that quote, the people getting rich in finance that would be switching into startups already have the combination of sufficient positive attributes and opportunities, including the necessary condition of drive/determination. If they lacked those things, they wouldn't be in that group of people that would have gotten rich in startups.
PG points out that being driven is not a necessary condition for being rich: "there are a lot of people who get rich through rent-seeking of various forms, and a lot who get rich by playing games that though not crooked are zero-sum."
Since the skills necessary to succeed in finance are distinctly different from those necessary to succeed as a startup founder, I assumed that the essay was attributing success to the one attribute it specifically calls out: determination.
I read it as claiming that there are lucky driven people, unlucky driven people, lucky undriven people, and unlucky undriven people. And then that most rich people fall into the first category.
This is totally compatible with all poor people being in the second category, and no poor people being lazy (3rd and 4th categories).
(I disagree with his essay, but for different reasons than this.)
I see what you mean, but wouldn't that make PG's point a tautology? If the difference is "productivity," and "productivity" is defined as the intersection of luck and drive that make people rich, then all PG is saying is that "the irreducible core of [economic inequality]" is having come into possession of wealth.
It really seems like one can either read PG's essay as a Randian screed or as poorly argued cant. I saw it as the former, but I can understand reading it as the latter.
> then all PG is saying is that "the irreducible core of [economic inequality]" is having come into possession of wealth.
Not quite. He's saying (in my reading) that even if you legislate away all the other sources of inequality (even to the point of wiping out all assets and giving each citizen an equal amount of cash to start anew), inequality would still arise due to differences in personal productivity / drive.
Seems true to me, although entirely irrelevant to the topic of real world inequality.
So then he's back to saying that inequality would arise because some people are "more driven" than others. Another way to phrase that would be to say that those with less money are simply less driven. Put in uncharitable terms, they would be poor because they were lazy.
It really sounds like he believes this to be the cause of real world inequality, too:
"Most people who get rich tend to be fairly driven. Whatever their other flaws, laziness is usually not one of them. Suppose new policies make it hard to make a fortune in finance. Does it seem plausible that the people who currently go into finance to make their fortunes will continue to do so but be content to work for ordinary salaries? The reason they go into finance is not because they love finance but because they want to get rich. If the only way left to get rich is to start startups, they'll start startups. They'll do well at it too, because determination is the main factor in the success of a startup."
> [saying] inequality would arise because some people are "more driven" than others [=== saying] those with less money are simply less driven.
Slow down there. You can't just take the converse of any old statement.
PG is saying: IF ((starting equal) AND (differences in drive)) THEN (ending unequal).
You are saying that PG's statement is equivalent to: IF (now unequal) THEN ((earlier equal) AND (differences in drive)). Which translates to "Poor people are poor only because of laziness."
Furthermore, the quote you provide says: IF (rich now) THEN (probably driven earlier), which crucially says nothing at all about people who are not rich now.
> Slow down there. You can't just take the converse of any old statement.
This is in the context of a hypothetical universe where "the only way left to get rich is to start startups." In that universe, PG asserts that the driven will do well, thereby creating inequality. Since we know inequality exists, some will have done less well, and "determination is the main factor in the success of a startup."
To go back to what you said earlier, this isn't directly relevant to real world inequality. But the essay posits this hypothetical world as a parabolic justification for economic inequality. The essay acknowledges that "few successful founders grew up desperately poor" but refuses to engage in any discussion of why. It will only examine a simplified universe, which allows the author to make implications about the real world and then hand wave any reactions away when others engage with those implications.
If you think it was a justification of inequality then you are reading it wrong. His argument is that there are good things which inherently produce inequality, so it is too non specific of a target. We're better off attacking rent seeking and poverty than inequality as a whole.
PG claims that if all other avenues to wealth are shut off, then the driven and determined will "do well" at starting startups. That is not at all the same as saying that all successful startup founders are driven.
If the game is more equitable the tall centers or the driven founders will do better. If bribing the ref/lawmakers is an option then this is less true.
If it doesn't imply that poor people are lazy, then what does it imply? That the rich and poor are equally driven, and that something other than effort (luck, inherited wealth, etc) makes the rich rich and the poor poor?