Do We Need An Upper Class?

 The question is purely rhetorical, of course, since any society will have a ruling elite, that's just the way things are.

The real question is who the members of elite are going to be. In Europe in Middle Ages, the upper class consisted chiefly of warrior aristocracy, the male representatives of which were supposed to fight for the interests of the king and country and as such, had special privileges. It's no doubt that many of them nowadays would be described as a sociopath/psychopath, their equivalent nowadays would be elite mercenaries de-facto ruling the country.

This old European aristocracy blended with rising bourgeoisie later on the way as capitalism starting developing. In some countries, you got various revolutions which chiefly swept this particular category of people away, while many other European countries kept the monarchy intact but undertook some reforms and are currently trying to pretend they are shining examples of democracy. 

The truth is, the upper class became much more caste-like, secretive and insulated than even in medieval times, where you could get inheritable nobility bestowed on you for your service provided to your country while nowadays the only way to join them is either to be born in one of these families or become obscenely rich and marry into one.

And when you start looking closely at who is occupying all the positions of importance, there are still these people around. They have dropped the old "noblesse oblige"  principle and are cheerfully screwing their lessers on the behalf of the international financial elites. A funny thing is that in places like UK, they keep promoting themselves by making countless TV series and movies about themselves, like Downton Abbey which are especially popular in the USA, the country which fought a revolution to get free from the British Crown, of all places.

I honestly don't get this obsession with (British) upper classes. When you look at the consequences of their current rule, the government of elite mercs would probably be an improvement...