Randall asks:

But the ability of people to compare themselves to more other people and to feel to be in direct competition with more people must to be generating resentments and even demoralization due to comparisons that would not have been possible in the past.
...
Are we then headed toward a future that will be characterised as an age of resentment? I'd very much like to hear your comments on this.

OK, well, I made a snarky little comment which implied that the demographic dynamic would simply shift, only the proudly pathetic would reproduce, while those who are demoralized wouldn't because of self-loathing. Of course the successful don't have time to have children. A more specific example is the butt-ugly loser who refuses to settle for a "non-hotty" because of "standards." Over time these individuals will cull themselves from the gene pool.

But Randall points to the current situation in the historical context. Frankly, I wonder if a highly stratified society where envy rules might not be a return to the conditions that prevailed before the rise of egalitarian liberalism and more open economic opportunities and after the decline of the EEA hunter-gatherer lifestyle. In other words, the wheel of history might be turning back to the baroque pyramidal social orders that were dominant for 5,000-10,000 years after the agricultural revolution. I don't think the analogy is perfect, as explicit familial connections ("noble pedigree") might be less important than socieconomic and genetic advantages.

One point of interest is the importance of the perception of meritocracy and the reality of social churn. As many have noted, in a social context where all have equal opportunity, that is, a perfect meritocracy, stratification will remain, and perhaps be even more fixed, as only genes are fullly expressed and associated. Reality dictates the importance of the family environment and socioeconomic advantages, but over time, one might hypothesize that these serve only to amplify the advantages of the "natural elite" born of blood. The transition between the non-liberal democratic regimes and our modern age ushered in a period of transition and social churn where many groups rose above their "allotted station." But one can rise only so far, and the curse of the quest for the most perfect station of status is not mitigated by biological well being or material plentitude.

Moving out of the mode of airm-chair EP theorizing, note this recent article that discusses the trend of elite colleges drawing more from the wealthy professional classes. This is bad for the perception of meritocracy, but recall that in the 1960s the Ivy League Schools raised their academic standards and eased out the predominance of blood & breeding in judging who would matriculate. A whole generation of boomers rose as far as their talent could take them. The period of transition might have lulled Americans into thinking that social mobility is a fact of human existence rather than a transient and ephemeral characteristic of a "phase transition" between two socio-historical paradigms.

Update: Derb has a tangentially related column up.