If you're interested in social mobility, I'd highly recommend the recent book The Meritocracy Trap. [1] The author, a Yale Law professor, talks about how aristocracy has been largely replaced by meritocracy in the US, and what the consequences are for both middle class and elites.

His takeaway is that there is a yawning gap opening up between middle class and elites, and that neither group is well-served by this gap. The middle class have less mobility than before, at least when it comes to achieving super-elite levels. And the elite class work themselves to death and prompt their children to do the same.

1: https://www.amazon.com/Meritocracy-Trap-Foundational-Inequal...