No, I?m not going to buy your recasting of the ?Two Americas? dichotomy as having to do with inherited, and thus presumably unearned, wealth. For one thing, focusing on those who inherit as somehow lacking the right to that wealth is to put the emphasis in the wrong place. What is dispositive is the right of he or she who creates wealth to decide how to distribute it, including to heirs.

Second, differences between ?the wealthy? and ?the rest of us? have little to do with inheritance. Most people who are wealthy today did not inherit that wealth. And plenty of people who inherit wealth don?t manage to maintain it, leaving their children with little and inspiring the old notion of ?shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.?

Walter Williams from George Mason University attached some numbers to this a while back. Only 20 percent of American millionaires at a particular point in time inherited their wealth. Another way to look at it is that only about 8 percent of the wealth held by the top 5 percent of households was inherited.

While we are at it, what is ?wealthy?? According to a 2003 Gallup poll, the median income at which poll respondents said they would ?consider [themselves] rich? was $120,000. That could certainly reflect the earnings of two professionals mid-way or farther along in their careers, having investing substantial time and money in gaining an education and developing their expertise.

Look, there are debutantes and Paris Hilton-type nightmares that you could offer up as counterexamples. And there are certainly wealthy crooks ? as with envy, the temptation to steal is oft-warned against and oft-surrendered to. But in the main, income differences in the U.S. reflect differences in family structure, in education and skills, and in personal choices. They do not mostly reflect the ?lottery of life,? as some put it, other than issues regarding educational access that I do indeed favor public policies to address (although you and I have disagreed about their potential effectiveness).

The life?s lottery argument really is a pessimistic viewpoint, and one at odds with economic reality.