The word lazy should be identified as what it really is: a pejorative.
Everyone wants to feel better about themselves and the easiest way is to look down on someone who has less. Less "whatever" really, people always find something that they think makes them better, money is just the obvious choice because society slowly associated money with success. It doesn't matter if the wealth came from their parents, or luck, they can still pretend it makes them better.
It's one of those situations where everyone's in on it. The poor really haven't much else to go on and they'll take this little boost in their standing, the rich are tempted to think they so much better than most other people. Everyone in between sits somewhere on that scale.
You can exert extreme effort in unproductive directions and provide marginal, even extremely negative, value.
You can work extremely hard, all day every day, and accomplish nothing.
Gulags aren’t known for their wealth or value generation. They’re known for their labor input.
I think it's easy to see: (1) A simplified variation of it is true (namely, that if effort1 > effort2 then outcome(env, effort1) >= outcome(env, effort2) for any fixed environment env); (2) It flatters those who have achieved high outcomes, regardless of how much effort they put in.
But its still not magic. It doesn't guarantee anything. Worst of all its useless if the work is directed to the wrong ends.
The people who simply think that because they worked hard wealth should just come to them are going to remain confused until they figure out that what you work on is also important.
The purpose of the concept is to push kids from a young age to be industrious. You are much less likely to become wealthy if you sit around doing the bare minimum.
Putting in an significant effort isn't a guarantee, but it does increase your chances from whatever the baseline is given your context.
The concept doesn't claim that wealthy people all worked hard; everyone knows you can be wealthy without having worked at all, such as through inheritance or the lottery!
There are way more empirical evidence that luck plays a much bigger role in wealth creation than effort.
my point isn't that when you put in effort you WILL create wealth. my point also isn't that luck plays a bigger role than effort (though, there's no empirical evidence for that assertion). my point also isn't that if you're poorer you didn't put in effort.
my point is: when you put in effort, you increase the surface area for luck.
put differently: if you don't think putting in effort increases your chances and it is mostly luck, why put in effort at all? luck will just find your door, after all, and if it doesn't, oh well.
And that's why this concept (your "myth") has value and should not die.
Wealth generation is not a meaningful driver, that's why people choose career with very low income trajectory, have hobbies, etc.
Calling people lazy is reductive and pejorative. People aren't inherently lazy.