I honestly don't see it. I don't think there's any such thing as an insurmountable challenge, where someone cannot improve their situation.
That you fail to see it, does not make
it so. Of course, I fully accept the idea of the American dream that 'anyone is able to do anything they put their mind too' I just feel this to be more of a pipe dream, than reality. As-long-as people continue to believe this, then 'competition' i.e. 'Capitalism' wins all day long. It is simply naïve to think that nothing is 'insurmountable'. You just haven't imagined the very worse it can be for someone, and multiplied that by 10, then you may touch on some empathy. Some kids are SO destined to fail, end up in crime, or dead--that the alternative is that insurmountable blockade called 'all things' stacked totally against them. That you may suggest the 'few' go on to get themselves '3-crappy jobs' to be in a position to eat, live in some crappy trailer park, is not really getting on; in any normative sense of the word.
Sure, they might not become a millionaire, but they can be better than they started out
.
When someone is at absolute rock bottom, yes, I suppose anything can be classed as an improvement.
Even a bad school is still better than no school at all.
But NOwhere near as good, as a plush fee paying private school.
When these people drop out of school, when they get pregnant out of wedlock, when they try to have a family before they are financially ready for it, when they get involved in drugs and gangs and end up in prison, those are all things that are going to either negatively impact or ruin one's life.
WOW, you've covered a massive amount of ground here. ALL this can happen for a multitude of reasons. For example, dads doing hard time for murder, mum is spending the majority of her time on her 'back' to keep food on the table, 'you' are the oldest of four siblings, yes sure things don't look that 'insurmountable' because you've inherited what? Not the work ethic like yourself, not the normalcy of a stable family unit, nothing but a stack of attributes of the criminal kind.
Those are bad decisions to make. If you make good decisions, if you stay in school, if you don't do things that will ruin your chances, if you get a job and keep a job and work hard, you are going to be better off than if you didn't and if you pass those lessons on to your kids and they to their kids, then your family line is going to climb out of poverty. It really isn't rocket science.
See above. Rocket science may be not, but 'social science' very much so. If only
things were as clear cut as you suggest
Paul