Let’s be honest here – no matter how hard you work on something in life, it will be impossible for you to reach the top if you weren’t born with a silver spoon or simply weren’t lucky enough. 

Social mobility is an illusion advanced by the capitalist agenda to leech off other people’s hard work as they brazenly sip piña coladas on their $1.5 million yacht in Saint-Tropez. By presenting us with the possibilities of improving our lives by working hard, we have developed this obsession with the hustle culture and have enslaved ourselves to wealthy corporations with little to no regard for our lives. 

I once talked with one of my friends about the causes of poverty and the ideal government we would like to have. He was a wealthy guy who could effortlessly afford the University of Chicago’s tuition of $64,260 a year,  so one could imagine the privileges he already had. With sheer confidence, he stated that we can achieve anything we want through hard work and perseverance. There is an undeniable truth to this. After all, intelligence is nothing if not paired with discipline and diligence. 

However, so many factors determine the success or failure of an individual and their social standing in society, never solely relying on the amount of work one puts in. He further claimed that poor people remain poor because they choose to be poor, which is inherently wrong. There may be some, but never always all. 

To think that someone can achieve everything as long as they work hard enough is to turn a blind eye to the injustices that parasitize our social systems. This is what the falsity of social mobility wants us to believe. Most people in poverty are not poor because they choose to be or they’ve slacked off their entire lives; that’s not why they can’t even afford a McDonald’s meal. They live in poverty because the social, economic and political systems we have in place intentionally rob them of opportunities to succeed in life. 

Think about the custodians and security staff who respectively keep our dormitories clean and our campus safe. The waiters, cashiers and delivery workers who work long hours, day and night, but rely on tips for a huge part of their salary because their employers don’t pay them well.

This has cultivated an intemperate tipping culture that places the burden of paying workers on the customers instead of the business owners and stigmatizes those who don’t tip according to what they bought. All these workers have something in common: the lack of certain privileges (such as class, education and race) and a passionate commitment to hard work. Yet, most of them, if not all, still live paycheck to paycheck despite devoting blood, sweat and tears to their jobs. 

So the next time you tell someone that all they need is hard work to progress in life, check your privilege and challenge them. Social mobility is a mere falsity fabricated by those in power to keep the poor poor and the rich rich. Hard work may be essential for our survival and existence, but it will only get us so far without the privileges we need to navigate and succeed in the labyrinth of life. 

Nobody wants to live off the streets after getting fired from a job because of their skin color, only to get trampled and pitied by every pair of eyes that land on them. Nobody wants to stop going to school because they have been relentlessly harassed and bullied for being an immigrant. Nobody wants to work their 9-5 for a job that pays below the minimum wage because nobody else would hire them due to their educational attainment. 

However, these are the cruel realities of life, and no matter how hard some of us work, the idea of moving up the social hierarchy will forever remain an illusion because we are not endowed with the privileges that allow one to ascend such a hierarchy.