Class in the UK is almost entirely down to birth. The upper classes are taught - explicitly, in public schools - to assume entitlement and to assume that they w

Class in the UK is almost entirely down to birth. The upper classes are taught - explicitly, in public schools - to assume entitlement and to assume that they will get away with whatever it is they're trying to do. An interesting corollary is that close up they're neither intelligent, not competent, nor talented. They're simply entitled, well-connected, and often ruthless. It's almost impossibly hard for an outsider to decode the signals required to join them without having been through the sausage machine. Being relentlessly self-interested and covertly ruthless will certainly help - they respect that - but it won't be enough to get true insider status. That needs 'breeding' - family connections. No amount of success will buy that, although outsiders are occasionally allowed to marry into it. The US seems much the same. Access to the Big Money is a little easier, but access to the aristocracy is still very difficult. You can be successful and super-rich - usually from a rather privileged start - but the families who matter will still consider you an exotic specimen and not One of Them. In both countries the extent to which the families who really matter manage to keep themselves out of the news is impressive, as is the extent to which the news is bread-and-circuses which keeps all of the lower classes distracted and off-balance. This forms another class ceiling that outsiders can't break through, because they won't be able to find it - unless someone on the inside points them in the right direction.