[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Ibram

The only real difference is that our elite class gets a little more leeway to call themselves self-made, most of the time, and that power tends to hang around only two or three generations rather than for hundreds and hundreds of years. And that most of our elites can stay out of the limelight if they want to, more than those connected to british nobility at least, I think.

They might call themselves self-made, but few are. Money begets money. The ability to move upward in the US is diminishing.

From Wiki

Several studies have been made comparing social mobility between developed countries. One such study (“Do Poor Children Become Poor Adults?")[5][15][16] found that of nine developed countries, the United States and United Kingdom had the lowest intergenerational vertical social mobility with about half of the advantages of having a parent with a high income passed on to the next generation. The four countries with the lowest "intergenerational income elasticity", i.e. the highest social mobility, were Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Canada with less than 20% of advantages of having a high income parent passed on to their children. (see graph)