Suppose, entirely for the sake of argument, that such a fictional country exists. First, it would need to have killed off all its industry - outsourced most of it to third world countries where labor is cheap. This way the large, uneducated mass wouldn't have access to the once plenty, well-paying blue collar jobs and would be kept poor. Relegated to a life in the low-wage, long hours services industry if they're uneducated.
Second, it would need to have placed college education at such a premium - say 40,000 - 50,000 USD a year - that it's comfortably out of range for most working-class families in the fictional country you described. This means your youth, mostly sons and daughters of the working middle-class, generally won't have access to a tertiary education. Worse even - if they do decide to go ahead with it, they're kept in bondage, in the form of student loans, for the rest of their adult lives. 852
This will ensure the elites, and only the elites, can send their sons and daughters to college, and therefore manage to stay educated and powerful.
Third, it would need 'low taxes' - but only on the rich. The government is, after all, pretty much the only body capable of bridging income inequalities and redistributing wealth - so you wanna keep it as underfunded as possible. That means things like universal health care and a decent public transportation system are all also out of reach, further compounding the burden you place on your working-class citizens.
Last, but not least: you want a fanatical, partisan media. Day in and day out, addressing the wrong problems - trying to make it all about 'personal freedoms', or guns, or foreign wars, or terrorism. Never about the clear elephant in the room which is the mounting income inequality. That would work to really drive the point home, and make sure that the rest of your citizens are kept well in the dark and alienated.
Such a country would be rich sure, even prosperous, but it would have no middle class, and would also be one of the most unequal countries in the developed world. Ring a bell yet? 852