The Easiest Paths To Wealth

There is only one supremely easy path to wealth in earthly human life, and that is to be born into a family that is already wealthy.  The drawback is of course that for someone already born, there is no way to simply undo this circumstance if they came into the world as part of one of the many families that do not possess great material prosperity.  For the mere mortals in this more probable and difficult situation, work of one kind or another is the exclusive way to gain money and broader wealth without receiving it by accident or sheer luck.

Being born into a family with great monetary resources is potentially coupled with also having social connections other people have little to no access to, all by default.  Little to no effort has to be expended to get the attention of these contacts because they are already tied to the family.  You are simply raised into this arrangement.  Such ease does not mean that the son or daughter born into any degree of wealth will misuse it or believe anything assumed or philosophically erroneous about the nature of money and class, but they have the easiest path to financial prosperity, given that their older family members will not try to keep them from it.

Aside from the inherent role of luck in obtaining material/financial security—any being with human limitations is at the mercy of societal, natural, and divine forces they have no real control over that could snatch away wealth or jobs or the health necessary to maintain either—effort does play a role.  This does not mean that working hard, though committing to overtime or showing willingness to help with a variety of tasks, among other things, will not automatically enrich you.  Employers could absolutely ignore your efforts, keep you at your current position or pay if it benefits them, or not notice your investment in the job altogether.

It also does not follow logically that working hard includes only collaborative or competent effort.  Just because someone puts in effort does not mean they are doing anything more than trampling on other people in whatever way is most convenient in catapulting them to the top of the meaningless social construct (it is neither a logically necessary truth, though there are logical truths about it, nor an object out there in the natural world) that is the workplace.  It requires labor to trample on people to work one's way up the ladder, but it is malicious, egoistic labor rooted in laziness and perhaps deception.

Treating coworkers as subhuman to advance their own career, doing the same with hierarchical subordinates upon acquiring managerial power, and so on can entrench an irrational or immoral person more and more into a system that is often structured to thrive on the exploitation of those at the lower levels of "authority".  When such a person seizes or stumbles into an incredible amount of employer power, they might find little to no opposition with any realistic chance of stopping them; obtaining this power is always easier if they are willing to do literally anything to secure it.

The fastest way to wealth is to be fortunate enough to be born into it, and the next fastest way, though the particular duration varies based on many variables, is to be apathetic to anything that would deter one from brutal or unjust treatment of other people as long as one does not get exposed.  This sort of person craves power for the sake of money or status and yet manipulates people with no submission to reason or moral boundaries—or all but no submission.  I do not mean the kind of non-dehumanizing, nonsinful manipulation that all people can engage in with their philosophical/moral inferiors.  This is the truly predatory sort.