Can we please move to a more intelligent discourse on this than “rich people are in on a giant conspiracy to keep us down”? The social hierarchy shows self sustaining intent on small scales, but by and large it has been clearly shown to be emergent and ever-evolving. Believing that someone is keeping you from moving up the hierarchy is a story you tell yourself.

Nobody said it's a conspiracy. It's simple specialization. Some people are good at productive positive-sum work, others are good at office politics, manipulation and scams. The latter are good at accumulating power to extract value from the former.

Imagine a world where workers decided how much to pay their assistant ("manager") according to how much tangential effort and overhead he saves them so they can focus on their core competency.

> rich people are in on a giant conspiracy to keep us down

I mean, project 2025, heritage foundation, Thiel, Trump ... like in fact they are exactly on it.