The "Right" see poverty and wealth as marks of "character" ;, the "Left" see them as marks of circumstance.
I really do not think that statement is true, that or you are using a definition of character that is unknown to me.
Someone's character is a combination of both genes and upbringing, but all of us know of people with strong characters, both rich and poor. We see people poor from family circumstances, sickness and disability in themselves or their family who manage to cope with life, fighting authority, seeking help, which we know would break us and other people. You can see the same characteristics in better off people, but they need not be using them to make money, they may channel them into working for good causes, or campaigning for a particular social change - or they may become billionnaires
I quite agree that some people are born with more push and determination than others, but it doesn't mean that they can use it to make money. Many an able and determined child has left school early without qualifications because the home needed the money and never achieved what they could achieve if they had stayed at school and become a doctor or gone into business on their own.
Some people, at all levels will make the most of any opportunity offered but opportunities are fewer and more restricted the more deprived you beginnings, and you need to remember that because the exceptional people at the beginning and end of any distribution will have an exceptional lack of a quality or a super abundance of it, the fact is most people will fall in the middle area with neither lack or super abundane - and we are the majority.
But, I have never seen or read anywhere that conservatives see wealth or poverty as signs of 'character'. the Conservatives certainly measure success in monetary terms, but character?
