| One of the reasons that 70% of Americans say the American Dream is no longer attainable is that they believe achieving it is due to luck... not skill. Is there any evidence to support this view? You might be surprised. A few years ago, my friend and colleague Mark Skousen asked if I would debate Robert Frank at his FreedomFest conference in Las Vegas. I agreed. Robert Frank is a New York Times economic columnist and the author of several books, including Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy. Frank puts forward a thought-provoking thesis in his book: If you have been so economically successful that your income and net worth put you in the top 1% or 2% in the country, the deciding factor was not talent, education, hard work, risk-taking, persistence, resilience or all of the above. It was luck, plain and simple. After reading the book, I took an informal poll of family, friends, and neighbors. What I learned is that, with few exceptions, individuals who have experienced a great deal of economic success believe Frank's thesis is mostly false. They believe that hard work and persistence are the deciding factor in wealth creation. But almost without exception, men and women who have experienced modest economic success strongly agree with it. Psychologists would say that is because human beings tend to accumulate pride and shun regret. We tend to take most of the credit for the good things we achieve in our lives and blame negative outcomes on circumstances beyond our control. However, I discovered another interesting pattern. Self-described progressives tend to agree with Frank's thesis. Self-described conservatives and libertarians do not. This goes to the heart of political differences between the two major parties. Democrats generally feel that economic outcomes in life are primarily determined by your group membership and your circumstances: whether you were born male or female, Black or white, rich or poor, etc. Republicans tend to feel that, whether the hand you were dealt at birth was better or worse, your economic outcome is primarily determined by your willingness to educate yourself, work hard, and take responsibility for your actions. This is a generalization of course, but - in my experience - a fairly accurate one. We hear these thoughts echoed when Democrats argue for sharply higher taxes on "the fortunate" or, in former President Obama's phrase, "society's lottery winners." Republicans, on the other hand, often talk about "personal responsibility" or how affluence is the result of "earned success." The truth, of course, is that good and bad luck play a role in everyone's life. | 
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