In rare cases, it's appropriate.
Consider the ratio of business owners to employees.
I don't know what that ratio is offhand, do you?
However, I will say that I do encounter a lot of people who say they have/had a business, whether it's some sideline operation or whatever. There's a lot of people who go into business, but for whatever reason, it didn't work out. Numerically speaking, out of all the private business entities which have ever existed in America, most have probably failed.
So, when you say that people don't take the initiative to start a business, it seems that "starting" the business is the easy part. It's being able to last over the long haul which most people have difficulty with. Even whole chains have been going belly-up. (I was reading an article lamenting the demise of Sears, as if we're losing an old friend. It's nostalgia for a lot of people.)
The point is, we don't really know what a person's life situation is or was that led them to their current situation. I don't think that there are that many people who simply "coast through life" as you put it. Some people do, but only those who have the wealth to do so.
If I posed as a Nigerian prince, I just might sell some bridges.
But this is different from understanding an entire economic system.
I would say it's analogous to understanding the political system. One can understand the basics without necessarily knowing everything about it at a PhD level.
But it's not just a matter of understanding the system. I daresay that most people probably don't understand the system all that much - otherwise we wouldn't need so many lawyers and judges to have to make a ruling over every little thing that comes up. Every court case that comes up involves someone or some group of people going to a judge and saying "we don't understand the system, can you explain it to us?" Even business owners and large companies employ attorneys because even they don't understand the system.
But we're not really talking about a system. We're talking about a philosophy. Political science, economics - these are social sciences, just as philosophy is. The system is not as much at issue as it is the nature of human beings.
And humans can also be complex organisms - a lot of people don't understand "human nature" or can even agree if such a thing even exists. When you cut to the core issue, that's what the whole "capitalism vs. socialism" debate is all about.