>>There's one very, very important difference: aristocrats were generally in a heritable position that couldn't be taken from them, and peasants were generally

>>There's one very, very important difference: aristocrats were generally in a heritable position that couldn't be taken from them, and peasants were generally in a heritable position from which they couldn't rise. In the U.S., at least, relatively wealthy / successful people can fall and relatively poor / unsuccessful people can rise. In classic feudal societies, this was basically impossible without revolutions. That's true for now. But the way things are heading; the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The barrier dividing the 2 gets a little harder to cross every year.