It's unusual to get [a question](https://peakd.com/hive-123046/@ecotrain/ecotrain-question-of-the-week-season-6-5-is-life-fair) where there is such an obvious answer, which in this case is a straight up 'no'. 

![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/revisesociology/242s1QDoSe2Dkou291ZPxWtsCwXhQNFuxez21gkJUNDSbTWvEq2rVfqzFpxZcvvRQNBec.png)

If we consider fairness to be about one's access to positive life chances - health, wealth, happiness, for example, AND one's ability to avoid negative life chances - death and injury, poverty and misery, then clearly the country and class one is born into have a huge impact on one's exposure to positive life opportunities and the risks which might lead to unfortunate negative outcomes. 

Most of us live in societies where wealth is a primary determinant in educational outcome, ability to get a decent job, and access to material goods, and one's gender, sexuality and ethnicity have an influence too because many societies are sexist, racist and homophobic, not to mention transphobic, even if these attitudes are underground. 

Focussing on the country I know the most about, the basic social injustice of unequal access to positive and negative life chances is pretty irrefutable in Britain today, at least if you want to lead a normal material existence - owning your own home, being warm, having decent food and enough money for transport and a decent social life - you simply have much more chance of getting a decent job and earning a decent wage if you went to a private school, if your male, and if you're not black, for example. 

However there is still a wide spread myth of meritocracy - most people suffer from the unfortunate delusion that they are solely responsible for their own success or lack of it in life - when in reality being born rich (for example) gives you access to a better quality of education, and being born white means you're less likely to get harassed by the police. 

Even when it comes to your chances of dying of Coronavirus - the poorest fifth and three times as likely to have died from it than the riches fifth. 

The evidence of the basic injustices of life are depressing and overwhelming. If you don't believe me head over to my revisesociology.com blog, it's stacked full of it! 

HOWEVER, things aren't as bad as in Victorian times, living as we do in a globally connected post-modern world in which individuals have more freedom than ever before - at least in this day and age there are a wealth of alternative opportunities to escape from our unjust, unequal system, and find your own way to realise self-reliance, health, happiness, and craft one own's version of success. 

To my mind helping people to realise these alternatives is far more crucial than relying on a nation state/ welfare state to 'compensate' the poor for their disadvantage from birth, or through which people who feel they have been victims of racism or sexism seek redress (in a WOKE kind of fashion) - because the kind of efforts welfare states make in order to make societies 'more fair' frequently back fire - by creating welfare dependency, for example. 

So no, life is most definitely NOT fair - but to those born on the wrong side of the inequality divide (like I was) I say this: just realise that those who have made it in life probably did so because of their fortunate circumstances - especially if they are white, male and middle class - so pay them no heed, you have little to learn from them - but there's no point being bitter about it, their birth-luck is no fault of their own, and just because they've made the most out it, there is no point feeling bitter about it or engaging in some sort of class war. 

Far better to just try and find your own way in life, and rather than competing with those born more privileged than you, craft your own path in life, there's plenty of opportunity out there!