Breaking Class Lines: Why My Story Couldn’t Exist in a Socialist System
- Lisa
- Sep 29
- 5 min read
I grew up in Cleveland, in a working-class family and neighborhood (Garfield Heights) where resilience wasn’t a virtue… it was a necessity to survive. You fall down, you can either get up or stay down. It's a try-again-no-one-cares-you-are-on-your-own-good-luck type of culture.
I was not groomed for boardrooms, tech leadership, or global company strategy discussions. My upbringing was very simple and basic...I was built and taught to work, to hustle, and to stretch my dollar until it snapped.
Let’s fast forward to today. Currently, I lead in one of the world’s largest technology companies. I run cloud infrastructure platforms. I manage software teams who build front-end solutions that shape the brand and personality of Oracle for the online world. I shape customer experiences for our cloud division, you know, the stuff that defines "value" for an enterprise. The leap from Garfield Heights, Ohio to Silicon Valley leadership tables didn’t happen because someone handed me a quota spot.
It happened because I outworked and outlasted.
I turned disadvantages into my fuel to prove I could win too. I fought upstream in a system that at least allowed me movement...if you had the guts to try.
And here’s my political truth…in a fully socialistic country, my story dies before it can even begin. And this is why I fight for our country’s roots. I am proof the system works…it’s not easy, but it absolutely works.
Cleveland Roots, No Safety Nets
I am a single mom raising four kids while navigating one of the most intellectually competitive industries on earth. I support two households and independently raise my children in the 9th most expensive city in our nation with the 11th highest cost-of-living index in the globe. I don’t have trust funds. I don’t have insider connections. I don’t have the luxury of waiting for an opportunity to knock. I forced doors to open for me. I jumped from scrappy back-office software roles in industry and over to front-office software development leadership roles. I earned promotions not because anyone needed to tick a diversity box, but because I solved problems no one else wanted to touch.
In a socialist system, where outcomes are leveled and ambition is a liability, that kind of climb doesn’t happen. You stay where you’re placed. And where I was placed was “working class."
Why Socialism Would’ve Killed My Path
Let’s be blunt. There are real "themes" that exist with socialism that would have 100% prevented my pathway and blocked my success. Those are:
Reward Caps Flatten Drive - My career accelerated because I could take on high-risk, high-reward work. Running the largest production instance of customer billing wasn’t easy, or low stakes. It was risky and on paper, my social class and credentials created suspicion around my abilities to be successful (I am not an Ivy Leaguer). In a socialist model, reward caps would erase the point of taking on that level of risk. Why bleed for the upside if the upside is capped by policy and government blockers?
Central Allocation Blocks Innovation - Much of my growth came from grabbing messy, undefined problems that float around in this gray space. The projects without a spec and without precedent, and I turned them into “something” that was useful or made sense or I just fixed them. This freedom does not exist in a socialistic system because initiative is not allowed. In centralized models, roles are rigid, projects are assigned, and stepping outside your box is punished, not rewarded.
Merit Can’t Outrun Politics - In socialism, advancement is mediated by political loyalty or collective quotas. I didn’t get here because I “fit the mold,” the reality is I got here because I broke the mold. My survival was merit-based: deliver or disappear. If I didn’t “make it” no one cares, and the next person would get a chance and I was out. That doesn’t exist for citizens under a model where merit is diluted by ideology.
Risk Is Criminalized - I bet on myself constantly. Leaving stability, pivoting into new frameworks, building skill-sets on my own time is the only way to graduate classes. And in a capitalistic society – everyone gets this opportunity. Everyone. I bank on the asymmetric upside of risk. Socialist systems flatten this variance, and in some countries, it punishes “non-compliant” risk-taking. Because remember, you need to stay in your lane and roles and projects are already assigned to certain people.
The American Flaw That Saved Me
Do I think America is a perfect meritocracy? Absolutely not. The class system here is real. We all know it and we argue about it constantly. There is a real patriarchy but there is space for change - if you have the tenacity, the discipline and the smarts. But the bias is thick. The ceilings are low for people with backgrounds like mine. But these ceilings aren’t made of steel, even if I was raised in a steel-factory city... The social ceilings in America will crack if you pound hard enough. I am living evidence of that.
Socialist models promise equality, yes…but they also enforce mediocrity. And let's face it, they replace ceilings of glass with ceilings of concrete. My story: the Cleveland working-class kid to Oracle engineering leader...this story only works because I was given an opportunity to pound on ceilings until they broke. The American system didn't prevent me from pounding. I didn't get in trouble for beating on them either. In socialism, there is no pounding. There is only placement "of where you belong." Anyone who pounds is dealt with privately and quietly. And there are so many stories of real human suppression in the countries that sport some form of socialism. In the United States, 93% of children from the lower-income and poverty/poor-labeled categories ended up with higher incomes than their parents (according to 2023 Cato Institute Study, Upward Mobility is Alive and Well in America). These trend lines do not happen in the socialistic systems. People stay in their lanes, I mean class. You can't say "the sky is the limit" or "shoot for the stars" or "anything is possible" or "be whatever you want to be" when you live in a more socialistic structure.
Why This Story Matters Politically
My journey isn’t just personal. I am a case study. I am proof that the American system allows for variance. The system allows for personal risk-taking and also supports class system mobility. Nothing is every guaranteed and it shouldn't be. You must earn it. And the possibilities are there for anyone who wants to write their own pathway.
All of this matters with how you frame your opinions of the American political agendas. If a single mom of four from Cleveland, Ohio can end up driving cloud infrastructure strategy in the global hot bed of Seattle, Washington...then the system, flawed as it maybe, holds pathways worth defending.
Socialism shuts these pathways down. It levels everything, including human ambition. It confuses fairness with sameness. And sameness kills stories like mine.
So no, my story isn’t just about grit. It’s about politics. And it’s a reminder that the same system that forced me to fight harder is also the only system that let me win.
I am proud to be an American.
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