Just World Fallacy

The fallacy of tending to assume that whatever happens to someone (whether good or bad), that person must have deserved or earned it somehow.

For example, the kind of thinking that concludes that if a CEO is rich, it must be because xe worked hard and honestly to earn that money, never mind that the CEO made those profits on the back of sweatshop labor in a country where it's legal to pay workers almost nothing for working in highly dangerous situations, and by cutting back the wages of local employees to the point where they're barely making a living wage. Or conversely, that the employee who is barely making a living wage simply isn't working hard enough to earn a higher pay, never mind that people higher up in the company decided to cut workers' pay so they could afford to pay bigger bonuses to the executives.

Other examples of the Just World Fallacy include...

• "You say she was sexually assaulted? Well, that's what happens when you dress that way!" (Not everyone who is sexually assaulted wears "provocative" clothes, and even if they are, they don't "deserve" to be assaulted anyway - in the end, it's the fault of the one who chose to assault.)
• "Tricia shot Paul? He must have done something to provoke her. He probably deserved it!" (Never mind Tricia's history of turning violent at the drop of a hat over trivial matters...)
• "The hurricane clearly happened because the people weren't praying hard enough." (Never mind that the hurricane took place during hurricane season in an area known for hurricanes.)
• "Wow, my biggest competition in this contest had to pull out because she's sick? I must have done something to deserve that lucky break." (Or the competition happened to get sick by purely random luck.)