You didn't consider that this quite old publication, renowned for its conservative market-friendly op-eds and neutral-as-can-be reporting, may have realized that wealth inequality and lack of social mobility is a bit more important than they used to think?

I think you're possibly thinking about this the wrong way. The story here isn't "noted communist magazine the Economist is trailblazing by writing about social mobility problems", it's "social mobility has become such a problem that even _the Economist_ is now covering it". This isn't a new concern, by any means, and at this point I would think that _most_ serious media has covered it; the Economist is just grudgingly catching up.

Note that they couldn't resist trying to find a bright side (the numbers are still quite _bad_, just not as bad as people think they are):

> But in Europe, climbing the ladder is easier than most people believe