> Why do people go through the system, hate the system, then gleefully enforce the system (or an even more brutal version of the system) when they are at the top?

Survivorship bias.

The people who get to the top are those who can play sufficiently well by the rules of the system.

It’s called being institutionalized.

You can let it happen or resist its influence over you from the start. Maybe through reform. Maybe by doing your own thing.

This is a classic question asked in any abusive cycle. Why do children who were abused by parents have high likelihoods of spousal and child abuse, continuing the cycle. Prevailing theories is that it becomes normalized and not knowing how to do things differently. We are imitation learners. Capable of more, but this is built into us.

As another commenter mentioned, survivorship bias. "It sucks, but it is working, right?" Often we want to convince ourselves of this because it can justify the bad stuff that happened. We want to rewrite this in our heads because it helps us not get depressed. But there's always room to improve and I think this is the better aspect to focus on. Sure, what we're doing may work but that is not a reason we shouldn't improve.

In fact, one of the most frustrating aspects to me is that it is the job of a scientist/researcher/engineer to find problems and then improve them. So that's why I find maintaining the status quo rather infuriating. It is in direct opposition to the fundamental framework we work in: to always be improving.