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Originally published in the Indianapolis Star on 12/14/2011

In the fabricated world of the Occupy Wall Street movement, there are two classes of people: the 99 percent and the 1 percent.

The problem with Occupy Wall Street is that it gets the notion of "class" wrong. Its adherents actually know this. No bearded misfit sitting in a festering tent on public property would say that SteveJobs (whose product the bearded misfit uses to post his third-rate Marxist blogs) is no different from Bernie Madoff or Jack Abramoff. Jobs is not in the same "class" as Madoff and Abramoff. Jobs got rich making the world better for us. Madoff and Abramoff got rich by hurting others.

The bearded misfit, if he really thinks about it, doesn't care about the top 1 percent. He cares about those who are super-rich but shouldn't be. It is in this way (and perhaps only this way) that the protesters are old-fashioned Americans. They don't think it's right that people should get so much without earning it.

It's not success but "earned success" that matters. American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks says that earned success is "the ability to create value honestly -- not by winning the lottery, not by inheriting a fortune, not by picking up a welfare check. It doesn't even mean making money itself. Earned success is the creation of value in our lives or in the lives of others." Brooks has produced a lot of research showing that people are happiest not when they have a lot of money, but when they produce value of their ownaccord.

For this reason, breaking the world into two classes based on income misses the point. The more important class distinction is between those who have earned their success and those who haven't. In a recent article in The American, Steve Conover writes: "The true heroes in our economy are the producers and earners; they can be found all the way up and down the income ladder, and class warfare should defend and reward them instead of targeting them."

America isn't a land divided by the 99 percent and the 1 percent. It's a land divided by those who earn their success day after day and those who don't. This class distinction has nothing to do with how rich or poor you are. It has everything to do with what kind of person you are.

Who doesn't earn their success? Here are some examples:

Most lottery winners. Someone who earns barely above the minimum wage shouldn't be gambling. When he wins, his success has nothing to do with merit.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives who gambled on subprime mortgages because of a taxpayer-backed advantage. They represent all too-big-to-fail constituencies. Their success -- connected as it is to Washington -- is divorced from merit.

The teacher who enjoys a security she knows the parents of her students don't enjoy. When success is divorced from merit in the classroom, we all lose.

The chief executive who drives a public company into the ground and receives a multimillion-dollar severance package. Everyone knows that's just plain wrong.

The young woman who knows that having a baby out of wedlock brings with it a host of government-benefits. There's not much merit in feeding your child with taxpayers' money.

The son of a multimillionaire who lives off his dad's wealth. Spoiled rich kids are among the biggest wastes of money in America these days: They consume vast sums and produce little. Some of them have even been found amid Occupy Wall Street protesters. Their parents do America a great disservice by severing the tie between success and merit.

Earned success has nothing to do with where you land on the income scale.

Imagine if the NFL paid the biggest salaries to people based on seniority or a player lottery. Brett Favre would play until he was 70 years old, and Peyton Manning could be earning Curtis Painter's salary and vice versa. Professional football would be a joke. No one would watch it.

But in our non-NFL ordinary lives, we tolerate a lot of unearned success.

It's time to stop protesting a false premise and focus instead on promoting earned success. Do we need to end too-big-too-fail policies? Yes. Do we need to end harmful welfare programs? Yes. But most of all, we need to encourage earned success in our own homes. That's where the real change begins.