It seems difficult to "overproduce elites"? Consider literacy, which was a marker* of the aristocracy many centuries ago, yet now is nearly universal. It seems more as if "when former markers become common, new markers —based on cargo culting the extant high status population— enter popular consciousness"?
See also the (I am convinced originally a joke which got out of hand) U vs non-U kerfuffle.
* the Jaquet-Droz automata: the writer, the musician, and the artist were not a random selection of three accomplishments, but those which distinguished the elite of the time.
