"Yes, you might make more money faster, but you are necessarily surrounding yourself with other people who have no concern about the law, only about making money."
The only difference between what I was doing amd something like finance is that the people in finance have the social influence to ensure the law is on their side. The things they do are either not illegal due to loopholes and the like, or not seen as problematic enough to warrant police attention or even soelcietsl disapproval.
A lot of people truly believe that the wealthy deserve to be able to freely make money because they must have worked hard enough to deserve good things. Even a lot of poor people believe that.
"But you could have followed a skill, for example, learned to code, learned about finance, learned to sell legally, and instead of the chance of going to prison and being around gangs and guns, you would have had the chance to make huge amounts of money and be retired now as a millionaire"
I learned quite a bit about to balance books, generate reliable clientele and network. I am really not sure a career as a banker or whatever would have been a more ethical choice. It's just a legal one. We do okay. We have nice things. We do nice things. I've helped my partner grow our business as well as being the primary parent at home and working alongside that. There's more to life than having loads of money. But we are comfortable.
"rather than bringing my kids up to not respect the law if it conflicts with their ability to make money,"
Are you talking about enough money to buy a house one day, or enough money to live a luxury lifestyle?