Bourdieu would say (in his ridiculously convoluted french way) that modern capitalism maintains a class system via inculturation at the family/ childhood level,

Bourdieu would say (in his ridiculously convoluted french way) that modern capitalism maintains a class system via inculturation at the family/ childhood level, where a lifetime of test scores and social skills is grooved into a person and determines the rest of his life chances. This allows us to pretend that the current class system is due purely to fair competition between adults by not looking into the family and the school system, while at the same time ensuring a steady stream of disadvantaged to work in the factories and kill themselves buying junk food, beer, and cigarettes. And the few that climb out are considered the evidence that "anybody" could do it, "if they really tried" -- hogwash! It's a little bit more fair -- and a lot more complicated and subtle -- than when William the Conqueror came over, pointed a sword at the local Anglo-Saxons, and said basically "You will be a peasant or I will kill you and your family. That's fair, don't you think?" Of course the Anglo-Saxons did this to the Celts and the left-over Romans, etc, etc, etc. So, no, its not a fair world. Marx was super naive about socialism, but he was a great historian, and he said "History is the history of class struggle". Not quite that simple (Marx, like us all, loved his simple answers), but one should look for the class struggle angle in every situation.