The Populist Myths on Income Inequality – David Brooks

David Brooks argues that in the global economy, the keys to personal success are the abilities to work with customers and to organize and motivate co-workers:

[…] as Stephen Rose points out in The American Prospect, over the past 25 years the share of working-age adults in households making over $100,000 has risen by 13 percent while the share of households making less than $75,000 has dropped by 14 percent — after adjusting for inflation. [* * *]

Members of the second and much more persuasive school of thought on
inequality say the key issue is skills.  Lawrence Katz, formerly of the
Clinton administration, now of Harvard, puts it this way:  Across many
nations, the market increasingly rewards people with high social and
customer-service skills.

A contractor who can work with
customers, design kitchens and organize jobs may earn five times as
much as one of his workers who has identical cabinetry skills.  An
office worker who is creative, charismatic and really good in
fast-changing interactive settings now gets paid much more than a
disciplined middle manager who excels at routine tasks.

Katz
describes a polarized economy.  Wages are rising in the bottom quartile
for workers who provide personal services.  The middle is lagging.  The
real rewards are going to the top 10 percent, especially to those
relative few who have the skills to transform organizations from the
top.

In other words, the market isn’t broken; the meritocracy
is working almost too well. It’s rewarding people based on individual
talents. Higher education pays off because it provides technical
knowledge and because it screens out people who are not organized,
self-motivated and socially adept. But even among people with identical
education levels, inequality is widening as the economy favors certain
abilities.

— David Brooks, The Populist Myths on Income Inequality – New York Times., Thurs, Sept. 7, 2006.

You could phrase it just a little differently:  on average, the better you are at serving, the more likely you are to be economically successful.