[grasshopperpurp]

It looks like countries with greater inequality may provide more motivation for people to move up. Of course, there are countless other factors (regulation, societal norms, etc.), but if I'm a generally content person living in Finland or Sweden, and I'm relatively (but not remarkably) poor and still have what I need, I can focus on self-improvements that make me happy/fullfilled. If I'm in the USA, it'd be hard to divorce the idea of self-improvement from how I can monetize it. In countries where the poor feel more threatened (talking degrees, not absolutes), there's real urgency to distance yourself from that class.

I also wonder if the higher mobility among countries like GB, Japan, the US, and Turkey suggest societies that create more zero-sum scenarios. I'd be interested in other explanations.