Disclaimer: I work hard. I have had two jobs on campus, write for the paper and will graduate from the University in only three years with a double major. I’ve had an internship while taking 21 hours and have kept my GPA above 3.9.

Second disclaimer: I am not rich.

There is a misconception that those who are rich have gotten that way because of their hard work and effort. Many think that they, and they alone, have earned their fortunes by producing something unique that the world demands. That only they could have created the world. That from their own brains and brawn spawned “the next big thing.”

But that’s not true. In the United States today, 100 billionaires, or nearly 30 percent of all those in the U.S., have made their fortunes through investments in the financial sector. Same for millionaires. They use money raised through investors to buy into the stock market, lowering risk to themselves while still allowing the possibility for maximum reward.

Upon acquisition of wealth, most of America’s wealthy appear to suffer from what The Guardian columnist George Monbiot calls Romnesia, which is “the ability of the very rich to forget the context in which they made their money. To forget their education, inheritance, family networks, contacts and introductions. To forget the workers whose labour enriched them. To forget the infrastructure and security, the educated workforce, the contracts, subsidies and bailouts.”

They miss — or ignore — what Warren Buffett calls the “Ovarian Lottery,” the circumstances around one’s birth. Millionaires and billionaires ignore their history. The parents they have. The place of their birth. The decade in which they were born. How would Facebook have come to be if Mark Zuckerberg had been born in 1930? How would Bill Gates’ career look if he’d been born in rural Laos?

These things also depend on what has come before, the idea of the “inheritance of the past.” This “common treasury,” as proposed by 18th century French economist Jacques Turgot, suggests that this inheritance is not just a collective effort but knowledge meant for us all. In their book “Unjust Deserts,” Gar Alperovitz and Lew Daly bring up the example of Newton, had he been required to relearn all of history: All knowledge preceding him, all advancements since the start of man to the 17th century would be lost. Newton would “not have contributed much more than an insightful caveman.”

Think too about consumption and consumer society. Without me — without you — such billionaires wouldn’t exist. I buy their products, surf their websites so that they can achieve such high levels of wealth. But if I didn’t, let’s say, go on Facebook, if you didn’t, if no one did, Mark Zuckerberg wouldn’t have interested advertisers. If I didn’t buy an iPod, if you didn’t buy an iPhone, if your roommate didn’t have a Mac, Apple wouldn’t be the richest company in the world. If my roommate didn’t type papers on a PC, if your professor didn’t write his exam in Word, Microsoft wouldn’t be the behemoth it is.

Because I contribute to the incredible wealth of these folks, I want their help in return. I want them to help me get through school without massive debt. I want them to help me to have the chance to be as successful as they have been.

The “self-made” millionaire is a myth. As John Donne said, “No man is an island.” Your success is, in part, predicated on how much your services are in need. It depends on the industry you work in. I have family members who work for large companies who make what my dad, a professor, makes many times over. Do I think they work any harder than my dad? No. Do I think they work any less than those CEOs and managers above them? Absolutely not. Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks in their book “Billionaires’ Ball” note that “no one individual could ever make much of a difference — no matter how brilliant, dedicated, motivated, or hard-working he might be.”

All success is communal. The community works together to create a better society than what existed before. It’s how civilization works. To say that a meritocracy rewards those who have worked hard or harder or are smarter or better than those around them is a myth. True, if you and I come from exactly equal circumstances and you work harder than I do, you will be more successful — and probably more wealthy. But we don’t. And if I start three rungs down on the ladder of success, I have a much longer way to climb.

Sarah is a senior in LAS. She can be reached at [email protected].