We are taught that life is like a racetrack: that merit will find its own reward. This is the central way our system legitimates itself and motivates people to compete. But what a strange racetrack! In reality some people start half-way along the track, while others are forced to run with a millstone around their necks, while others are not even allowed on to the racetrack at all. The values of an equal and meritocratic society which capitalism inculcates into people are constantly at loggerheads with the actual material inequalities in the world.
John Lea and Jock Young, What is to be done about Law and Order?, 1984