"The harder I work, the luckier I get"

This post started as a comment on Just Left, got to big, so it goes here. Jordan Carter blogged how Labour policy is about achieving a society that is "fair" because it's a matter of luck that determines "differences" (born with different abilities, family wealth, etc.) and it the responsibility of society to make those differences not count against people.

I went to a college that had a cross section of New Zealand that is unusual and probably unique - my classes had poor kids from Cannons Creek, rich kids from Redwood, middle class from Titahi Bay; kids from large families, only children; polynesian, maori, white, asian - if you can name the population slice, there was someone in my class who fitted. (The only common thing we had was we were almost all the same religion - it was a Catholic College.)

And today, all the kids have had varying careers - a couple went into the army, a couple became nurses, bankers, graduated from Uni and became lawyers, accountants or some other professional, one became a cartographer, a couple are policemen, a few bankers, and so on. However, a few have not been sucessful, or had periods of little sucess before getting somewhere.

But I can't think of any link between social-economic status, ethnicity, or any other box you could tick and how sucessful mu classmates have become. The only thing I can think of is that the ones that have worked hard have done the best. A quote attributed to both Samuel Goldwyn and Gary Player is this: "The harder I work, the luckier I get."

One thing few can dispute is that the Labour Party has worked hard to obtain and hold on to power - if they fail to see the link between making incentives for hard work and good outcome, but think of anyone that has a good outcome is just "lucky", then they are buying into a mentality that New Zealand should not strive to achieve.