CMV: Almost anyone can win capitalism with personal responsibility, ambition, and sacrifice.
I'll start with a few key terms and caveats:
"Win capitalism" means to achieve financial success in a predominantly capitalistic society. I will use these indexes to gauge economic freedom and will define any country with a score >70 on either index as a capitalistic society. Edit: I would define 'financial success' as attaining a comfortable standard of living - making enough to pay for the necessities, save for retirement, and enjoy a reasonable amount of disposable income. Because these values will vary from place to place, I can't put a specific number to them at a high level.
"Almost anyone" precludes those with significant disabilities that deprive them of significant opportunities. This would include people with severe physical disabilities (eg quadriplegics) and severe mental disabilities (eg psychosis), but would not include people with less severe disabilities.
"Personal responsibility" is accountability. It's taking ownership over your choices and actions. This includes setting goals and working towards them. It also includes the consequences of your actions - if you make poor choices, the consequences of those poor choices are on you.
"Ambition" is your desire to achieve something. In the context of this CMV, this relates to setting goals that will materially improve your (financial) situation and being motivated to achieve them.
"Sacrifice" can best be summarize by "short term pain for long term gain" - essentially, you have to be willing to accept some discomfort now for success in the future.
My view is that almost anyone can achieve success in a predominantly capitalistic society by taking responsibility for themselves, being ambitions, and making sacrifices to achieve their goals. This view is informed by both personal experience and case-studies/analyses. As a young adult, I was chronically unemployed and struggling to keep my head above water. I had no marketable skills and below-average education. I blamed everyone else for my problems - executives, billionaires, the government, DEI, you name it. I spent years drifting like this and making excuses until I changed my mindset - and I rapidly achieved success once I put that mindset into practice. I've seen this trend in my social circles as well - those who make excuses and blame others are far worse off financially than those who take responsibility and solve their problems. I've also analyzed cases from around the world while discussing this topic. I've yet to find a case where a path to success can't be identified or practically achieved.
What could change my view:
• Evidence or reason-backed arguments that establish that a substantial amount of people can't achieve success. I will also award a delta if I cannot identify a path to success or a way of practically achieving that path to success given a specific scenario, provided that scenario falls within what I've established above.
• Arguments that challenge personal responsibility, ambition, and sacrifice directly as general foundations for success under a capitalistic system.
What likely won't change my view:
• Arguments about the collective. We're talking about individual people. I believe that almost everyone can achieve success, but that doesn't mean that they will all achieve success in the same way.
• Arguments that relate to substantial failures in personal responsibility, outliers, or universal risks. If things are harder because of your choices, that is your fault. I do not find outliers persuasive as people will slip through the cracks under any system. On a similar note, I also won't entertain arguments that rely on risks that persist across economic systems - eg developing a debilitating illness or getting hit by a bus.
Why I want this view changed:
I'd like to better understand contrary positions and modify my view to be as reflective of reality as possible. Additionally, adopting a kinder and more empathetic perspective might be beneficial.