The Donkey Climbing the Stairs

When merit isn't enough

Every society teaches its children that ability matters.

Work hard. Prepare yourself. Do your best. If you are good enough, you will have a chance.

Then, sooner or later, many of us discover the uncomfortable truth: merit can open a door, but it does not always decide who gets through it.

Sometimes the door opens for the person who knows someone.

Sometimes it stays closed for the person who was better prepared.

Sometimes the rules are followed exactly as written—and yet the outcome still feels profoundly unfair.

That realization can arrive early in life. Mine did.

I was eight years old.

The story behind the poem

Two boys I knew had attended the same school. Both were capable and well prepared. One had connections that helped him move forward and eventually reach the Military Academy in Modena.

The other was rejected during the selection process after a medical examination identified a physical problem.

What stayed with me was not simply that one succeeded and the other failed.

It was the suspicion that the difference between them had not been their ability.

If someone cannot defeat you on preparation, there is always another way to stop you.

I was only eight, so I had no vocabulary for what I was witnessing. I didn't know about cronyism, patronage, social networks, or what I would later call relational capital.

I only knew that something wasn't right.

Years later, that memory became the starting point for the first poem I ever wrote: The Donkey Climbing the Stairs.

The title came from the absurdity of the image itself: a donkey somehow climbing stairs while someone who actually knows how to climb is left behind.

Injustice becomes different when it happens to someone you know

As a child, I had already been deeply disturbed by images of historical violence.

I remember seeing films depicting the massacres of Native Americans by the U.S. cavalry. I remember images of Nazi concentration camps and the horrors inflicted on prisoners.

Those events were immense. They belonged to history, to distant places and distant generations.

But the story of those two boys was different.

It wasn't history.

It was my world.

I knew the boy who moved forward. I knew the boy who was stopped.

That makes injustice harder to look away from.

Perhaps this is where our sense of justice really begins—not with political theory or moral philosophy, but with the first moment when we look at something happening in front of us and instinctively think:

This is not right.

Privilege rarely looks dramatic

As I grew older, I realized that favoritism does not always announce itself with a major political scandal or a coveted public job.

Sometimes it is much smaller.

A connection that moves someone ahead on a waiting list.

A phone call that gets an appointment sooner.

A professional who makes an exception.

A favor that is quietly returned.

A door that opens because someone knows the person on the other side.

None of these things, taken separately, seems capable of changing a society.

But societies are not shaped only by spectacular acts of corruption.

They are also shaped by thousands of ordinary exceptions.

The problem begins when the formal rules remain equal while access to those rules becomes unequal.

The law may be the same for everyone. The path through it may not be.

The child who wanted justice

When I wrote The Donkey Climbing the Stairs, I had no theory of power.

I wasn't trying to explain Italian society.

I wasn't writing about political parties or ideology.

I was simply trying to give a shape to something that had disturbed me as a child.

Looking back, I sometimes wonder how much of that eight-year-old boy is still inside me.

Because growing older changes our relationship with justice.

Children tend to believe that if something is wrong, someone should fix it.

Adults learn that the world is much harder to repair.

We discover that injustice is not an exception to human history. It is one of its recurring features.

We discover that we cannot fight every battle.

And eventually we face a more uncomfortable question:

What do you do when you realize that the world will not necessarily become fair?

The Zealot, the Pharisee, and the Sadducee

I have sometimes imagined three possible answers.

The first is the Zealot: the person who continues fighting injustice wherever he encounters it, regardless of the personal cost.

The second is the Pharisee, in my own contemporary interpretation of the figure: someone who publicly presents himself as a defender of justice, but may eventually turn that struggle into a career, a social identity, or a source of power.

And then there is the Sadducee.

The Sadducee, as I imagine him, has a different ambition.

He doesn't want to save the world.

He wants to reach a position where the world can no longer determine his fate.

He settles his own grievances. He secures his own position. He makes himself sufficiently strong, connected, or independent that he no longer needs society to be fair to him.

There is something undeniably cynical about that position.

But it raises an uncomfortable question:

Is open self-interest more honest than pretending that personal ambition is a universal cause?

I don't have a final answer.

Perhaps because I still contain all three figures.

The child who wanted justice.

The adult who understands power.

And the man who sometimes wonders whether the safest way to escape injustice is not to defeat it, but to become strong enough that it can no longer reach you.

What happens when justice is no longer guaranteed?

Maybe growing up does not mean losing our belief in justice.

Maybe it means discovering that justice is not guaranteed.

From there, people choose different paths.

Some keep fighting.

Some adapt.

Some enter the system hoping to change it.

Some enter the system because they want a share of its advantages.

And some eventually decide that their only realistic goal is to protect themselves.

I still don't know which path I will ultimately take.

But I know where the question began.

It began with two boys.

One kept climbing.

The other was stopped.

And somewhere behind that memory is an eight-year-old child who did not yet know the words clientelism, privilege, or relational capital.

He didn't need them.

He only needed to see an injustice.

And perhaps that is the strange thing about growing older:

we spend years learning the language to describe what a child can recognize in a single moment.

Relational Capital: In Life, It’s Not Just Who You Are — It’s Who You Know

We’ve been told a beautiful story our entire lives.

Study hard.

Work hard.

Become good at what you do.

Make something of yourself.

And sooner or later, your time will come.

That is the promise of a meritocratic society: if you have enough talent and determination, you can move up.

But there’s a question I’ve often found myself asking:

Move up where? And more importantly, who opens the door for you?

Because the more I observe society, the more I realize that there is a form of wealth we talk about far less than money, real estate, and financial assets.

It’s called relational capital.

Put simply, relational capital is the wealth contained in the people you know, the families you belong to, the circles you move in, and the relationships you can draw on when you need something.

It doesn’t mean having a lot of friends.

You can know half the city and have almost no social influence. Or you can know a handful of people and be part of a network capable of opening doors that remain firmly closed to everyone else.

And that’s where things get interesting.

You Can Have a Great Résumé and Still Have No One to Call

Imagine two young people with the same degree, roughly the same level of education, and the same desire to work.

One graduates and starts sending out résumés. Ten, then fifty, then a hundred. He waits for calls, goes to interviews, gets rejected, and starts over.

The other has a father who knows a business owner. His father makes a phone call. The business owner makes another call. A few days later, an interview is waiting.

Someone might say, “Well, maybe the second person was actually better.”

Maybe.

But that misses the point.

The difference appeared before either person had a real chance to prove their merit.

One had to go looking for an opportunity.

The other already had someone pointing him toward one.

And that may be one of the most underestimated differences in our society.

Not everyone starts from the same line.

And some people don’t even know where the starting line is.

Relational Capital Is Inherited

What I find even more interesting is that relationships, just like money and cultural capital, can be passed from one generation to the next.

A child might grow up in a family where the father knows the local business owner, an uncle is a professional, a cousin works in banking, a family friend is an executive, and an old schoolmate of the parents now holds an influential position.

That child probably doesn’t think of any of this as wealth.

To them, it’s simply normal life.

They grow up watching people meet, phone calls being made, favors being returned, invitations arriving, doors opening.

Without even realizing it, they learn how that world works.

Another kid can be just as intelligent and just as capable, yet grow up completely outside that network.

As an adult, that person first has to discover that such a world exists, then figure out how to get into it, and finally find someone willing to recognize them.

One person was given a map.

The other has to draw the map while walking.

And then someone has the nerve to say the first person got further because they simply worked harder.

There Are Families That Are More “Family” Than Others

You can see this very clearly in small towns.

You don’t need to live in New York, London, or Washington.

You don’t even need to be in a major city.

Spend enough time in a small town and watch how people interact.

Sooner or later, you notice something.

Some families are more “family” than others.

Not necessarily because they have more money.

Maybe they simply have a longer history, a familiar name, an established position, relationships built over decades.

They are the families that always seem to know someone.

If you need a professional, they know someone.

If a business is starting up, they know someone.

If there’s a problem, they know someone.

If you need access to a particular social circle, they know someone who can introduce you.

And when they don’t personally know the right person, they know someone who knows someone.

That is the power of a network.

You don’t have to know everyone.

You just have to know enough people to be able to reach almost anyone through them.

And Then There’s Marriage

This is where the subject becomes even more uncomfortable, because now we’re talking about something deeply personal: choosing a partner.

For centuries, families understood perfectly well that marriage wasn’t simply the union of two individuals.

It was also the union of two families, two fortunes, and—perhaps most importantly—two networks of relationships.

Today, we like to think that all of this belongs to the past and that marriage is simply about love.

And of course, love matters.

But it would be naïve to ignore the fact that we still tend to meet people within the environments we already inhabit.

We attend certain schools, universities, workplaces, clubs, restaurants, neighborhoods, and social circles.

And so, almost inevitably, we meet people who come from worlds similar to our own.

No conspiracy is necessary.

Nobody has to decide from above who should marry whom.

It’s enough for society to be organized into circles.

And when two people get married, it isn’t always just two individuals who come together.

Two networks meet.

Two families.

Two sets of assets.

Two reputations.

Two groups of connections.

And sometimes those two networks merge into something considerably more powerful than either one was before.

That’s Why Some People Would Rather Stay Single

There’s an interesting behavior that can seem strange if we look at relationships only through the lens of romance.

Some people would rather remain single than enter a relationship with someone they perceive as being too far removed from their own social environment.

It isn’t always snobbery.

Sometimes it’s simply an unconscious awareness that a relationship can change your position within society.

A partner can bring you into a new world—or pull you away from one.

They can introduce you to new people.

They can change how others perceive you.

They can even change the opportunities available to you.

And above all, they can shape the social environment in which your children will grow up.

At that point, marriage is no longer simply a private matter.

Whether we like it or not, it can also become one of the mechanisms through which social capital is passed on to the next generation.

The Social Elevator Isn’t Free

This is where the rhetoric of social mobility starts to crack.

We imagine the social elevator as something public.

You walk in.

You press the button.

You go upstairs.

But maybe society is more like a huge building filled with doors.

The elevator exists.

The problem is getting into the building.

And, more importantly, getting inside.

Because you can have talent, education, and ambition, but if you don’t know anyone and don’t even know where to knock, an enormous amount of your energy will be spent simply trying to find the entrance.

That’s the part of meritocracy we talk about the least.

Merit may help you win the race, but first you have to be allowed into the race.

And not everyone gets the same invitation.

The Power of a Phone Call

Think about a simple sentence:

“I’ll introduce you to someone.”

It sounds like almost nothing.

But it can completely change the situation.

Because when someone introduces you, they transfer a little of their own credibility to you.

I know you.

You know him.

I believe you’re someone worth listening to.

So I’ll introduce you.

From that moment on, you’re no longer a complete stranger.

That is relational capital.

It’s the phone call made before the résumé is sent.

It’s the dinner you were invited to.

It’s the group chat someone added you to.

It’s the professional who introduces you to another professional.

It’s someone saying, “I know your father.”

It’s, “Aren’t you so-and-so’s son?”

These sound like ordinary phrases.

But behind them there may be thirty, fifty, or even a hundred years of family history.

The Real Wealth of the Elite

Maybe we should stop thinking about elites simply as people who have a lot of money.

Their real wealth may be something far less visible.

It may be the list of people they can call.

A house can be sold.

A company can go bankrupt.

A bank account can be emptied.

A relationship built over decades, however, can continue generating opportunities.

One person introduces you to another.

That person brings you into another circle.

There, you meet more people.

One of them offers you an opportunity.

The opportunity generates money.

Money generates status.

Status gives you access to new circles.

And those circles generate new relationships.

The cycle feeds itself.

And perhaps this is how relational capital slowly turns into financial capital.

And What About the People Outside?

This is where we reach the part I find most uncomfortable.

People who are born outside these networks often have to build three things at the same time:

skills, money, and relationships.

Someone born inside a network may inherit at least part of all three.

That doesn’t mean their life will be easy.

It doesn’t mean they are incompetent.

It doesn’t even mean they won’t have to work hard.

It simply means that when they arrive at a door, they may already know someone on the other side.

And that is an enormous advantage.

Because one person may spend ten years building a network that another person received for free at birth.

The Capital You Can’t See

Perhaps that is precisely why relational capital is so difficult to recognize.

It doesn’t show up in a bank account.

It isn’t listed on a résumé.

You can’t see it in someone’s apartment.

It doesn’t have a stock-market price.

And yet it can follow a person throughout their entire life.

It’s knowing who to call.

It’s being recognized.

It’s being invited.

It’s having someone willing to say, “Come with me. I’ll introduce you.”

It’s having a last name someone recognizes.

It’s being able to walk into a room where other people don’t even know the meeting is taking place.

And perhaps that is the real difference between someone who possesses relational capital and someone who doesn’t.

The person without it has to search for opportunities.

The person who has it is often told that the opportunities exist.

In the End, It’s Not Just Who You Are

I’m not saying merit doesn’t exist.

I’m not saying everything is controlled by families.

I’m not saying every wealthy person is a beneficiary of nepotism and every poor person is a misunderstood genius.

Reality is much more complicated.

I’m saying something much simpler.

When we judge someone’s success, we usually see only the final result.

We see the successful professional, the entrepreneur, the politician, the executive, the prosperous family.

We don’t see all the people that person met along the way.

We don’t see the doors that opened.

We don’t see the introductions.

We don’t see the advice they received.

We don’t see the relational capital accumulated before that person ever began building their financial wealth.

So perhaps the question shouldn’t simply be:

“How much is this person worth?”

Maybe we should also ask:

“How much is the network they belong to worth?”

Because in life, we can inherit a house.

We can inherit money.

We can inherit a business.

But we can also inherit something far more subtle:

the people our parents know.

And maybe, in the end, the real social elevator isn’t the one that takes you from the ground floor to the top floor.

It’s the one that lets you meet the people who own the elevator.