Usually the "ruling class" does not actually think of itself as the "ruling class". And even those that do consider their success correlated with that of the so

Usually the "ruling class" does not actually think of itself as the "ruling class". And even those that do consider their success correlated with that of the society they life in. Just about nobody gets far in capitalism subscribing to the the sort of zero-sum theory you allude to[1]. And even if: it'd be idiotic for them to base their decisions on such a theory, considering the "ruling class" tends to be rather old, while social mobility only has effects over several generations. If you require empirical proof, look no further than the super-rich' historically preferred mode of philanthropy: the scholarship. Scholarships are pure social mobility: take promising young people with limited means and allow them to attend elite schools. Surely the Rhodes Scholarship, Gates Scholarship, Schwarzman Scholarship, New York Times Scholarship, or any of the thousands of these programs would not exist in the cynical world you describe. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzman_Scholars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzman_Scholars [1]: I had a quip about current presidents being the exception here. But as it turns out, the Miss America Scholarship is among the largest in the US.