There is definitely a small set of powerful, rich, and influential people who “benefit”, but I don’t think it’s a pyramid of nefarious overlords so much as it is just a large web of people acting on their own interests.

The same could be said for people with crab mentality. They are acting on their impulses, values, and opinions, born from likely unfortunate circumstances, when they drag their immediate others down. They aren’t thinking about holding society back at large.

Those are all just crabs in the bucket. Some of the more aggressively single-minded ones are nearer to the top of the pile than others.