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If they want to succeed, people just have to work. We are in a democracy!

This sentence is the affirmation of the dogma of equal opportunities. This poses a problem on two levels:

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On the one hand, it assumes that all individuals have received sufficient personal qualities, as well as quality education, giving them a real chance of succeeding on their own.
What are the chances, in a democracy, of an individual whose neurons were largely fried because his mother drank, and whose only upbringing was paternal violence, sexual abuse from uncles, and failure? school?

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On the other hand, he denies nepotism, that is to say the fact that success is largely the product of chance, and even more of the social power of the family network.

The equation for success

Level of achievement u003d Personal gifts × Work × Circumstances

This equation illustrates that success is the product of three factors, not just one.
Moreover, it is a product and not a sum, so that a single catastrophic factor is enough to annihilate the other two even if they are very favorable.
This is true both in terms of social and sporting success.

Citations

The characters 3(IV) de La Bruyère : « Ce qui disculpe le fat ambitieux de son ambition est le soin que l'on prend, s'il a fait une grande fortune, de lui trouver un mérite qu'il n'a jamais eu, et aussi grand qu'il croit l'avoir. »

Go deeper

The self-indulgence bias, Wikipedia article

Refer to question 'Why is coaching a dangerous illusion?'

Increase in inequalities, linked to automation, in the USA, in the period 1960 - 2020
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