When resources and opportunities get concentrated at the top of the pyramid, people get more desperate to take any advantage that comes their (or their children's) way. In really bad situations, it stops being about improvement and starts being about avoidance of decline. The late Roman Republic is an example - wealth, land and influence concentrated in fewer hands, society just gets more vicious and corrupt as people look for any edge they can get. The reign of Æthelred Unread is another example.

I think you're seeing the impact of our modern Gilded Age - it's turning society into a Red Queen's Race.