No, if you push them they will eventually admit that an individual can better their circumstances through their own efforts.

"Well of course if you allow for total freedom some people will achieve success, but then they will use that success to keep others down."

It's there at the last bit where they are wrong. The entirety of leftism rests on the wrong presumption of blank slate theory.

In reality it's not other people's success that is holding some people down, rather it's their inferior genetic makeup and the inferior genetic makeup of their neglectful / abusive / counterproductive / incompetent parents. I should say epigenetic, since food plays a role, as does abuse.

No amount of redistribution or dismantlement of society, or of enlightenment structures, is going to fix this.

You can give monkeybrains thousands a month and they will still find ways to fail and suffer, and to make others suffer.

But the leftist's entire world rests on this principle of fundamental biological equality, they can never entertain a challenge to this core, not even for a second. The mental dissonance would be too intense. They fly into a rage if the idea is even brought up, it's like poking a finger in the pain center of their brain. This is called ideological capture, and is why people can't be argued out of the leftist position. And since we all are brought up in this ideology, it's up to every individual to find their own way out. Most never do.

So they will keep taking increasingly draconian steps, and as their efforts keep failing and equity remains a distant dream, they will turn increasingly vicious, starting to drag down the competent instead. And when even that fails, they will turn to totalitarianism.

Say what you will of the Hunger Games, but it gets parts of our future right. A diverse upper class of hedonists living meaningless lives revolved around consuming propaganda, speaking and thinking in slogans, embracing a trans aesthetic to signal belonging to the rainbow reich, with everyone else living in squalor.

What it got wrong was that the districts were allowed to keep familiar bonds and live with some level of self governance. In our future they can not be allowed to arrange their own microsocieties. Community is reactionary. And any sense of belonging or loyalty besides to the state will be very strictly and mercilessly engineered away.

I remember a study celebrating and advocating for a new method of teaching math to achieve greater equity, but when you dug down into its body you found that it hadn't improved the performance of the low achievers, rather it had dramatically reduced the performance of the high and normal achievers. Their method essentially consisted of teaching subjects out of order. Their brilliant method was to cause confusion.

Their intentions can't really be said to be evil, and that's why they will never see themselves as evil, but they will drive us to destruction and misery, and what should we call that?