Some people get more money than others because they are smarter or work harder.
ttbn,
Some is the keyword here however, the people creating personal wealth by manipulation, exploitation and, above all greed, vastly outnumber those who become wealthy by merit or for want of a better description, decent means.
The Australian Billionaire Kerry Packer once stated that "one would have to be mad not to pay as little Tax as possible" or something to that effect. I agree. What I disagree with are the deliberate loopholes created for those with money to make more money and, for that we must blame the general public & the politicians they vote in.
Change to a Flat Tax, introduce a National Service & this Nation will bloom as it never has before ! Capitalism & the economy must be a symbiosis because left to its own, capitalism is Parasitism !

People with money either inherit it or have others earn it for them or run this or that scam/profit gouge.

As for working harder that may include shortening the two-hour luncheon to just an hour. Or having a staff meeting where the staff are told their jobs are on the line if the profit curve doesn't continue on the skyward trend.

There was a time when working harder improved your lot quite well and that was in the post war years when our government followed Keysean economic theory and when co-ops flourished.

And the three-bedroom home with the two-car garage quite common. Petrol for 3 cents a gallon/around four litres. Big comfortable cars that all but floated over our rough country roads.

Today we not only have to work harder and longer just to make ends meet but our wives are forced to also burn the midnight oil as well just to get by.

And if you're over 45, it's the economic scrap heap/early retirement. And madness as these latter years are your most productive. And the years where your experience makes you one of the company's best mentors. Capitalism was the answer but it not the version in vogue today.

But that which enabled our grandfathers to buy a three-bedroom house, a serviceable car and able to afford an annual holiday on a single wage.

And where you earned your own pocket money mowing lawns, doing a paper round, baby sitting or helping out with household chores.

We've come a long way, but most of it has been downhill since the late seventies as the conservatives undid all that we built up in the immediate post war era as we all paid our fair share of the common tax burden. Now is individualism and rat eat rat competition, tax avoidance and the death of cooperative effort that benefitted all of us.

Those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end, yes, those where the days. La, la, la, la, La, la, la, yes, those were the days.
Alan B.

since the late seventies as the conservatives undid all that we built up in the immediate post war era
Alan B,
Are you absolutely sure about this ? From my observations Union demands undid most of it !
It all started with doing away with national Service & replacing it with the Peter Principle !

Indy,

The quicker we get a 'Seniors National Service' up and running, the better, get those lazy snouts out of the taxpayer trough, that's what I say, its time for shoulders to the wheel, for older folk like you. Surly you are up for a few hours each week of light duty working on your local road gang! A little work with pick and shovel never hurt no one! Are you up for it?

Are you up for it?
Paul1405,
I could be but doing it for the likes of you ain't worth me holding onto a shovel while you're holding onto one of your union mates whizzing one through your knuckles for him !

a shrinking cohort of haves and an expanding cohort of have nots!"
Paul1405,
I'd say that it'd be more apt to describe the situation as "an expanding cohort of getting too much for too little & a shrinking cohort of getting enough due to forced supporting the former" !
Think Peter Principle bureaudroids, think yourself !