I'd like to know your thoughts on my late dad, which, believe it or not, a lot of people claim was "lucky", which I find surprising given the circumstances: he was born in China in 1949 and before he had turned 1, Mao has taken over the country. He grew up during the Great Famine and later, the Cultural Revolution. But he was instilled with a top-notch work ethic early in life. When he was a teenager and young adult, he didn't indulge in activities like doing drugs, getting girls pregnant, excessive drinking, etc. but instead, spent all of his time studying because that's what he was taught by his parents (and grandparents) to do, even though he, like nearly everyone growing up in Communist China, was told to do.

Fast forward to 1982 when he got accepted to study in the US as a grad student. He literally came to the US with about $500 at the time and left an estate of over $2 million when he passed last year. Yeah, $2 million isn't that much these days but keep in mind he had only $500 to his name nearly 4 decades ago and that 2 million resulted despite putting me through college and supporting my mom who only worked for a few years in the US.

Personally, I won't argue that I'm lucky and privileged, but I posted my dad's story on a few other places and people there claimed that he was "privileged" and lucky even though he grew up destitute in Maoist China, at least compared to, say, rural Americans who grew up in single parent households that didn't care about education, did drugs, didn't have stable families, etc.

What do you think? Can a person who was born dirt poor in a developing country be "luckier" than someone born in the lower stratums of a developed country (like in a trailer park community in rural America) because that person from the developing country had an upbringing that highly valued hard work, education, and staying away from drugs?