The matter of nobility is moot because it is too subjective a concept to apply across the board.

It's the gap. Considering that it so often takes money to make money and that those with huge sums of money pay relatively similar percentage rates on taxes (and can better afford to pay someone to manage their money so they can minimize taxes) is where the problem seems to arise. If my greater amount of wealth gives me an easier vantage at making money, the playing field isn't equal. My understanding of America is that we try to make the flaying field equal to reward merit; not circumstance.

Forgetting that idea and moving on the "hard" work, I'm sorry, but sitting in an airconditioned office with a secretary to bring you coffee along with other amenities, even at 90 hours/week, is not tougher than digging ditches or inhaling sawdust which makes your body ache and fall apart quicker. Add to this line of thinking the many teachers like my wife who work 60-70 hours per week yet get paid for 35 regardless, and I think the "work A and B" rhetoric falls so flat it's ridiculous. Who bitches about the taxes we teachers ask for? It isn't usually the poor. "It's my money; why should I have to pay when i don't have kids; etc. etc. etc." I think the wealthy, particularly the very wealthy, forget that they only make so much money because of the society in which they live. They like to think they earned every dollar through determination and hard work but the simple fact of the matter is that they earned only a percentage of that. The rest of it was gained because they live in a wealthy nation where having resources such as money makes it easier for them to make yet more money. Take the richest, most adept businessmen and place them in a different environment during their development and they will be but a shadow of their "greatness." I'm not talking just about people who were born into wealth.