Even if everyone had a college degree, we would still need janitors. At least the janitors would be articulate, anyway. So as poverty increases, the poor are told to blame themselves and each other for stupidity, laziness, crime, leeching, or, god help us, genetic inferiority. The result of their rule is a subtle, depersonalized serfdom. Class does not have to be legally defined or static to exist.
Money differentiates the classes in a flexible, informal way.
Its effects on the people's lifestyles varies from homeless children to the spoiled brats we admire on Beverly Hills 90210 et cetera, whose biggest worries are who is having sex with whom. The effect is even more pronounced in the Third World. The solution can only come when people interested in justice and the poor can organize themselves into effective political units.