Immortal said:
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but do you really have any evidence for this? I mean, this is the normal right-wing argument; the poor are poor because they don't work hard enough or something to this effect. The general leftist response is either that a) they do work hard and the system is rigged to make sure they get nowhere while doing so or b) they don't work hard because they have experienced no benefit from working hard and have stopped bothering. Idealistically, I'd like to go with your rhetoric since the idea seems to be that people are the masters of their own fate and that we aren't completely bound by circumstance, but are you entirely convinced that's the reality of the situation in general? For your second paragraph, the liberal answer would probably be that few poor people are in the situation you described and that the majority put effort into their career and still get nowhere, rather giving them something of a right to complain about being poor. |
Actually, in the US at least, most people will live and die in the same social and financial status in which they were born. Why? Mostly because of the differences in education. Education level is close to being a hard-cap on how far up most people can climb and how much money they can make. A person who begins their education in a poor, apathic school system is at an automatic disadvantage from the very beginning. In effect, for the majority, the amount their parents can spend on education will determine that person's own professional success.
In some cases, education is also used as a sorting tool, in which it takes the place of "classism." Want to keep the riff-raff out? Throw up a "Bachelor's Degree Only" roadblock. I've seen quite a few of those, with no major listed.
Hard work is not synonymous with success. The wealth your family holds when your a child is a much bigger factor.
