The upper class wants the fruits of being wealthy, they're generally not in it for the "subjugation" aspect. With sufficient automation and efficiency/recycling, everyone could be what we call "upper class".
Ditto with skills, tests. Don't care, just as long as i'm above others.
A lot of people don't REALLY want to abolish slavery or heirachies. What really want is to ensure they're considered the masters.
No question that mentality exists, I'll argue that it's a very small minority of eg millionaires in any society that hold such a view.
There are around 11 to 13 million (not including primary residence) millionaires in the US; or around 4.5% to 5% of the adult population. The typical millionaire in the US is worth about $3 to $4 million. While it's a very large group of people spread across the country, they do have a few things in common.
The majority acquired that status from working extremely hard for a very long time, usually either operating and or selling relatively small businesses with no more than between a few dozen up to a hundred employees, or slogging away for decades piling up invested wealth slowly over their lifetime.
The millionaire class in the US is numerically overwhelmingly dominated by those types of outcomes and has been since the industrial revolution.
Extreme wealth on the other hand obviously is concentrated in a few thousand persons with unusual outlier situations, usually around very large business concerns. My suspicion is that group is dramatically more likely to have a master of the universe mentality.
I went to school with their children and their wealth was not shown in any obvious way. We were all equal.
To maintain their wealth required long hours, hard work and generally being fair to everyone around them. Within the same area, we had people who didn't have the same level of wealth but considered themselves superior because they were lawyers, or bank managers or other professionals. These carried an air of distinction and superiority and many considered the "millionaires" as plebs.
One cannot generalise about any group based on some specific characteristic like money. Each of them is an individual and though some can and do take up airs, others do not. I have a son to whom I have lent money so that he can get ahead and he has always shown himself responsible, including paying me back. The way he is going, he will be a millionaire long before I am. I have another son to whom I will not lend any money to, as he has shown that he cannot handle the responsibility. They were both brought up the same way, only one took up the challenge to be financially proficient.
Different people will act and react in different ways and you cannot paint any group of people with the same brush.
I'd say it's the majority of millionaires that I've met (all successful small business owners).
They all worked very hard for their wealth and built it over a lifetime, as you said, but every single one of them relished screwing over others and being better than others. They worked like they did for their egos, and not much else. And all of them are virulently committed to making sure they stay on top, even if the top is sinking.
"""the social group that has the highest status in society, especially the aristocracy. "it is important that the children of the upper class attend the ‘right’ school" """
I could have the same goods as you, but we'll find a way of distinguishing ourselves based on accent, assuredly. Speaking as a Brit.
If anything we should be striving to limit the power of artisotricacy type groups (whether in dynastical political families, special interest group form, oligopolistic industry cartels with political pull, etc, etc).
I don't see anything especially wrong with that as long as said distinction isn't built on some kind of vertical hierarchy which involves downwards oppression/discrimination.
People can be vastly different yet still consider each other as equals. The only reason we think of this as a contraction is that for the longest time humans have solely organized themselves in vertical hierarchies where the "top" is supposed "the best" going down to the "bottom" with the supposed "worst".
That's why so many people are conditioned to always strife for the top, for them it's the goal of the game, but a games goal can be changed, just like its rules.
Maybe you look down on me because I don't even have a HAM radio license, maybe somebody else considers himself superior because he knows a lot about wines, maybe other person thinks she's cooler because she knows everything about 80s punk bands...
In developed countries even the poorest are infinitely better off than the upper class in medieval times, safe for the aspect that they're not richer than their peers. That seems to be a very important factor for happiness.