What would happen if social mobility never happened?

Answer 1

To be frank, the idea that social mobility could never happen in any case is a fallacy. Social mobility can and always does happen even where it's restricted. This is because we really cannot completely control the social interactions of people. That's not a very helpful answer to you question though. For a better answer, let's look at places where social mobility is marginal at best. Take India, for example, which has historically had poor social mobility because of its Caste System. At the bottom of the caste system you have a class of people known as the untouchables. I'm no expert on sociology nor the history of India, but India has a huge wealth disparity and a lot of social problems because of its caste system. There have been repeated calls to end the caste system. When social mobility is restricted you get huge wealth disparities and socio-economic problems. You get an under-educated population and a small middle class (because the lower-classes cannot easily move into this class of people). If social mobility never happened, implying that everyone was static and their class was, say, determined at birth - I think this would merely breed conflict. Think of the aristocracy that was challenged by peasants during the French Revolution. It was called a revolution because change came of it. If change did not come of it, the violence would simply have been senseless - that's why I think it's infeasible to think of people never being socially mobile. You can take social mobility by force, if you must.