That is what capitalists want you to believe - I don't want to refer to your specific examples, as I don't think you and your family members are stupid or lazy, but I don't believe this is the case generally, my experience doesn't support it and if I cared enough I could probably dig up evidence that I'm right. Sure, there are idiots that try and fail, and fail because they're idiots, but what, something like 90% of new businesses fail in the first five years - I can't believe even most of that is due to incompetence.