[istorical]

Current economic and political systems reward baseless confidence, believing you are better than others (and speaking and acting that way), and hubris.

So maybe it makes sense that our political and economic leaders have false confidence that "everything will be fine, it always has been for me".

[bilbo0s]

I think they are more confident that most of the people in society believe in the same hubris. They can all point to some class of people that are lower than them. Don’t underestimate the power of that kind of motivation on the masses.

The classes of people on the bottom are usually not numerous nor educated enough to cause a real issue. And if you get really lucky, the hierarchy is somewhat based in ethnicity. People will fight vehemently to support such structures.

Taking advantage of these sorts of motivations has worked to organize and control human societies for millennia. There is absolutely no reason for elites to think it will fail now.