That is a misconception.
In the US the average CEO received $670 in compensation for every $1 the worker received, you can not tell me that the CEO works 670 as hard as the worker.
Governments set the conditions where any one can succeed, which means providing quality education, law and enforcement of those laws. Standards to adhere to and working conditions that reduce the exploitation of those who are not as smart as you. Government has a huge role, even if it was only to enforce contract law and prevent theft.
I am a systems administrator and the joke in the industry is that good systems administrators are lazy. I know that it is true because I worked hard writing routines that would automate most of my repetitive work, just so I could be lazy.
Personal responsibility is something that I cherish as well, but it would be naive to think that when there is big money to be saved by dumping waste products into the environment, regardless if it is arsenic from gold mines into rivers, or CO2 in the air, that people would be as ethical as you or I.
If you want innovation, fund research in universities, patent those innovations and allow the products to be made by manufacturers at a fee.
If there were other places to work
Then CEOs would not be making 660 times their employees.
They have limited your choices to work or die in very few places.
They have burden small businesses so much with regulations and taxes that they can’t grow.
They allow corporations like Alphabet ,etc to squash new technology and innovations so they can continue raking in Billions.
They all all part of the same club and we ain’t in it.
You can’t just leave and go somewhere else so they continue to do what they do.
There is no more free market when 6 or 7 transnational corporations own everything.
University are full to the brim with all these save the planet types and do ABSOLUTELY nothing but rile up the population!
Absolutely Zero innovation that makes it to market.
Your mixing Ethics and Innovation.
You can do both but most won’t.
Government HAS LONG OVER STEPPED it’s mandates.
It doesn’t care about you or your life.
It is run but a bunch of elitist who want to do nothing but keep you grinding away so they can do nothing.
Government needs to be scrapped and put back to its original mandate.
University back to it’s original intent which is to instill higher learning and innovation not worry about pronouns.
Personal Freedom and capital markets grew this country from nothing to its heights.
The global elites flying to Davos in there private jets can’t have a solid Sovereign country.
They want a one world communist government with them in charge.
All this solar , climate crap is just a distraction to keep people fighting each other rather than them.
The prices of energy are being manipulated to bring pain. Period.
They finance think tanks just to keep everything in turmoil.
No solution can be proposed by politicians if there aren’t any problems.
Writing scripts to automate tedious work isn’t lazy.
The problem is when I started as an Network engineer you knew the entire network from top to bottom.
Now they have broken it in so many pieces not one person has any idea how it all works.
Just their little piece.
Then you have managers of these department trying to dictate policies on something they don’t even know how it works.
Not to mention hiring people who have no clue how anything works but they meet certain “Diversity” requirements.
The whole thing is a joke.