[ForHackernews]

I was mostly responding to your comment about class mobility. I don't consider a system that semi-randomly catapults a few ivy leaguers from already-wealthy families into the ranks of billionaires to be a "true class mobility engine".

[api]

I do to some extent.

Class mobility at the highest echelons -- say hundred-thousandaires to millionaires or billionaires -- helps class mobility overall by introducing new ideas and by enriching people who still remember what it was like to not have near-infinite supplies of money and power.

If you have a society where the top echelons are locked down, it won't be long until this caste system trickles down to the rest of the culture.

It's not everything and class mobility at lower levels of society is probably more important, but it's not a bad thing either.

[ForHackernews]

I suppose I agree with you in theory, but in practice I'm not sure there's much difference in outlook going from being the child of a wealthy family who has many things given to him (or her, but let's be real, it's almost always a him) to then being a young-adult billionaire CEO who can easily buy many things.

Put another way, if you can now afford to buy a brand-new Ferrari, does it matter that you had to drive a three year old Lexus to high school?