In America it's largely the choices people make. After all, school doesn't teach how to create a startup. But there are plenty of books and blogs on how to do it. All one needs is the get-up-and-go to take advantage of all the freely available information.
It's not a lack of "get-up-and-go" that perpetuates lack of opportunity. "All one needs"? You could gain some insights here by having a few conversations with people doing the sort of precarious contractor work that was mentioned previously. I doubt they're lacking elbow grease.
There's also an implication that it's simply okay to let job security rot away, that people in precarious work should simply read a few blogs and retrain. I'm not convinced that it's a good plan to ignore creepingly pervasive employment insecurity.
I've seen many guides to doing this in the form of blogs. This is not hard information to come by.