Utopia never existed. Until about 250 years ago, your outcomes depended overwhelmingly on what family you came from, no matter your skills. Children of peasants would become peasants; children of artisans would become artisans; and so on and so forth. Rebelling to that state of thing would likely get you hanged or ostracized.

The industrial revolution and global colonization changed that, injecting opportunities for an ever-growing section of men; and genocidal mass-war eventually did the same for women. This land of mirth and honey where every man has an opportunity to bootstrap himself is a somewhat fantastical invention. Social mobility might have been higher than average in the US between 1850 and 1950, but anywhere else "where you come from" was always the most important factor in anyone's fortunes.