Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

Naturally it was always a false hope. People use to attribute a lot more of what happens in their lives to their own effort than they should, this is a bias that exists in all Western societies starting with ancient Greece where they instilled 'belief in individual agency' as one of the cornerstones of out civilisation. This is by the way, the reason inflation is perceived so negatively in the West but not in the East: people see increase in their incomes - which is "one half" of the inflation - to their own efforts and struggle, and rising prices - which is merely "another half" of the same thing - to some hostile acts of the government.

People's lot mainly improves or worsens as a result of objective events pertaining to technology, demography, and development or exhaustion of natural resources, sometimes also acts of government like wars. Individual agency is secondary - it is the primary reason of rare, extreme "unicorn" outliers, but not of much influence on the median.

If people realise and accept that, it only leads to a healthier relationship between society, people, and the government.

Individual agency is important but I feel that people perceive it in a very simple way, "I work" => "I live as I want".

I think a major difference between East Europe and West Europe (can't talk generally about East/West) is that people in East Europe were trained/educated/forced/convinced that they can't change anything after 1950 (up to recently). This lead to most not take any responsibility, and to some profiting hugely (some hard working, some sociopaths). In West Europe there was always more struggle at multiple levels.

People's status improve mostly from accumulated individual actions. But someone still has to do the actions. That's why "propaganda" (convincing your own population that X is required) is so important because otherwise X will not happen.

Having a population that "accepts" things are "external" is perfect for the rulers, but no much for the others. Having a population that "struggles" and accepts it can't get everything it imagines (even if they try) seems much healthier.