A social phenomenon in which individuals or groups who have successfully advanced in status, wealth, or opportunity then act to block others from accessing the same path upward.
Key Features:
Motivated by fear of competition, scarcity mindset, or desire to protect
hard-won status.
Can manifest in
politics (e.
g., immigrants opposing immigration), economics (e.g., professionals gatekeeping their fields), or class mobility (e.g., elites dismantling
welfare or education programs they once benefited from).
Example (fictional): Raymond Leon in the movie "In
Time" rises out of poverty to become a Timekeeper but enforces the very system that traps others where he once was.
Example (real): An immigrant who gained citizenship but campaigns to restrict immigration for others.
1. After becoming wealthy through public
education, the
politician now opposes funding for schools, effectively pulling up the ladder behind him.
2. Some immigrants, once they gain citizenship, support restrictive immigration policies — a classic
case of pulling up the ladder.
