Not to mention that in the end, even if everyone did 'just work hard', there isn't enough wealth to go around. The civilised thing is at least to give people basic services and let themselves work to higher wealth from there.
And I am not saying that most poor people expect handouts. If anything I would guess that most of them are hard-working. I only brought it up because of the parent post. I realise I owe my own middle-class status to the fact that my parents are middle-class.
And I am all for the well-off helping the poor. I only wish the (South African, in my case) government would do their part.
My position is less about handouts, and more about the assumption that poor people know how to get out of poverty and all that's missing is the elbow grease. Yes, relying on the government for handouts isn't going to work, and you also want to be careful of welfare dependence. But education is a significant wealth-enabler, and merely knowing how to deal with various things can give people a leg up. Kamaal's point is about giving a giant shrug and saying "eh, what can you do?". It reflects the current realities of the situation, but the lazy part is not bothering to think of better ways forward.
Though one often reads that acquiring/making wealth isn't a zero sum game.