Your insights are perfect for supporting a laissze-faire capitalist economy like the one we ARE SUPPOSED TO HAVE here in the USA.

Sadly, we are devolving to full-blown socialism for the masses, directed by an oligarchical elitist class that uses a planned economy, including Marxist trappings such as price fixing, subsidies, discriminatory taxation, etc. , to keep a good many otherwise qualified/inventive/hard-working individuals who are not associated with their social set from succeeding.

We no longer really value excellence as a society. In fact, our schools expressly squelch it by teaching to mainstreamed/mixed-IQ classes where excellence is actually punished. The work ethic that built our country no longer always lead to upward mobility. In fact, unless one is an outstanding inventor, writer, architect (i.e. creatively gifted) or a superstar athlete or musician, hard work rarely succeeds in a society where it has become a true truism that "the more you make, the less you work."

That is not to say I don't fully support a RETURN to the egalitarian free-market economy we were bequeathed by our forefathers. I completely do. However, we are going to need a major power shift (such as initiatives like Steemit, and cryptocurrencies portend) in order to achieve it.