In a society that celebrates individual achievement, the idea of meritocracy is seductive.

It tells us that success is earned through natural ability, talent, effort and hard work.

But this comforting idea often hides a much more uncomfortable truth. It conceals that many of those who rise to the top do so because of structural advantages they rarely acknowledge.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the lives of people educated in our elite schools, spaces steeped in privilege, connection and entitlement.

While these people are not lacking in qualifications and credentials, there is a refusal, if not an inability, to engage with the perspectives and realities of those who are less powerful than themselves.

Those educated in underfunded public schools.

Those raised in crowded households.

Those who were bullied and marginalised.

When privileged individuals frame their success as the result of personal effort alone, they erase the role of unearned advantage, inherited wealth and social connections.

In doing so, they fail to recognise the very real barriers others face in accessing opportunity, gaining traction and achieving social mobility.

This is not ignorance, it is an indulgence.

The powerful are not required to engage deeply with the world beyond their bubble, as their reality is a comfortable place where complexity can be ignored.

Instead of grappling with systemic inequality, they promote a version of events where effort and talent are all that matters.

This simplification allows them to maintain a sense of moral superiority—other people are just lazy—while preserving a status quo that benefits them.

The ability to define the narrative, where effort and talent are all that matters, is itself a form of power.

When those from privileged backgrounds insist their success is self-made, they shape public discourse and perception. But they also shut down dissent.

As past experience has shown me, pointing out the unearned advantages of someone who attended a posh school, or benefited from intergenerational wealth, can provoke a swift pivot to defensiveness, if not hostility.

The myth of meritocracy is so ingrained that challenging it is seen not as a call for fairness, but as a personal attack.

But understanding what constitutes fairness requires more than unpacking individual stories of success. It requires engaging with the structural conditions that shape lives.

It requires humility from those who benefit from the system.

It requires a willingness to listen to voices that have long been marginalised.

Of course, recognising privilege does not, and should not, diminish individual effort. However, it should place it in its proper context.

Until we do that, we will continue to misunderstand how power and opportunity are really distributed in society.