Complicated question. In the first world, there's very definitely a mentality that will more likely lead to being poor than it will produce success. It's living in a land that DOES have opportunities for those willing to do what's required to take advantage of them- and yet falling for all the ruses that says you can't succeed (usuall pushed by poltical hack assholes) then living in a way where your focus is on things that pretty much will lead to a life of poverty- IE: spending all your time in a street gang terrorizing your own neighborhood instead of doing something productive, spending all your time learning something like being a rap star or a basketball player, rather than something you might actually stand a shot in hell of doing successfully.
On one side of town, you have a culture of people pushing their kids to study, learn useful skills, become doctors, CPAs, engineers, whatever- that wouldn't begin for one second to tolerate their kids roaming the streets at all hours, getting involved in crime, wasting too much of their time on things unlikely to get them anywhere- that's a community more likely to succeed.
On the other side of town you have a culture embracing exactly the opposite- not giving a shit if their kids study or not, in fact yelling at their teachers for any attempt at discipline. Kids roaming the street at all hours? What's the big deal? Focusing all their time and energy on things more likely to land them in a jail cell than an office earning money? So what? That's the culture. So be it. It's also one leading to poverty and a shitty life more than it is success.
Meanwhile- you have poor people around the world who don't have the benefit of living in the first world, who have exactly the opposite mindset- they WANT to get the hell out of poverty, and understand what it actually takes to do so. All many of them really require is a system where it's even possible to do so. Even with no money, many of them encourage their kids to focus on education, and don't put up with bullshit excuses.
It's why you can pluck a person out of that environment -with the mindset of wanting to improve themselves- stick them in the first world, and they will see opportunity literally *everywhere* and often do well.
It's no secret with me: I'd much rather see that type of person all over the world rewarded with the jobs and opportunities that many of the first world "poor-in-mindset" have forfeited dibs on, and are less deserving of. I hope the trend continues in that direction, and the poor-in-mindset eventually reach the type of poverty that comes when even the liferaft of first-world citizenship is removed and your life choices are totally your own. And that those who embrace improvement and strive for better (not just demand it out of some warped belief in first-world birthright privilege) get the rewards for it they deserve.
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