We grow up with a comforting lie: if you work hard enough, success will follow. It’s an elegant promise. It rewards ambition and insists that talent and perseverance are enough. But for many, this idea is more fantasy than fact. The myth of meritocracy not only ignores the invisible scaffolding that props up the privileged, it actively punishes those who were never handed the blueprint in the first place.
Let’s be honest. Hard work matters, but it’s not the whole story. It never has been.
The idea that we live in a fair world where anyone can climb the ladder if they just try hard enough is not just misleading, it’s dangerous. It keeps people complacent. It allows those at the top to point fingers at those who are struggling and say, “You didn’t try hard enough,” while ignoring how many doors were opened for them before they even knew a key was needed.
Think about who gets internships. Who can afford to work for free. Who gets to network with powerful people over dinner tables. Who walks into interviews with a polished resume and doesn’t have to worry about rent. These are not just accidents of effort. They are symptoms of a system built to reward the already advantaged.
Meritocracy, in theory, sounds noble. In practice, it rarely lives up to its promise. The playing field is not just uneven, it is tilted. It favors the wealthy. It favors the connected. It favors those who have always had a seat at the table. And when others try to pull up a chair, they are told there’s no room— or worse, that they just didn’t deserve it.
Success in our world is curated. It is shaped by access to education, family income, cultural capital and social safety nets. Some students grow up in neighborhoods with well-funded schools and college counselors who edit their applications. Others go to schools with peeling walls and teachers who are underpaid and overstretched. Some people grow up surrounded by books and art and people who model success. Others are surrounded by survival.
So when someone says “they made it” purely through hard work, it’s worth asking— what wasn’t said? What don’t we see? Who helped them, even quietly? Who gave them the chance to fail safely and try again?
This isn’t about denying effort. People work hard. People hustle. People rise against incredible odds. But when we glorify individual success stories and erase the systems that helped build them, we create a narrative that blames the poor for their poverty and praises the rich for their birthright.
The truth is, we need to stop pretending meritocracy exists in a vacuum. We need to acknowledge that opportunity is not equally distributed. We need to recognize that some people are running a race with lead in their shoes while others start miles ahead.
Until we dismantle the systems that reward privilege and punish poverty, meritocracy will remain what it always has been: a myth told by those who benefit from it, to silence those who don’t.
If we truly want a just society, we need to stop asking who worked the hardest and start asking who never got the chance to try.
