The political effects of downward social mobility induced by intellectual unemployment have been a major subject of concern since the 19th century, first in Germany and then in the rest of Europe —particularly in Italy, where the use of the derogatory term «spostati» (displaced) widespread at the beginning of the 20th century. German-born sociologist Robert Michels recurrently addressed this issue in his writings between 1906 and 1936, though considering the phenomenon less as a threat than as an opportunity for radical transformation. The paper examines how the long-term debate on upward and downward mobility within the socialist movement (and pointedly the anarchist ideas) influenced Michels’ views on social change and political organization, including the famous «iron law of oligarchy». Following the evolution of his thought from the years of his socialist militancy to those of his fascist engagement, the emphasis put on the «spostati» issue is striking. The first phase of his scientific production —from the articles collected in his first book Proletariato e borghesia nel movimento socialista italiano (1908) to the magnum opus Zur Soziologie des Parteiwesens in der modernen Demokratie (1910)— is a tale of disillusion, ending up in the embrace of the elitist frame of analysis about the inevitability of hierarchy. In the last years of his life, the sociologist has returned to the topic of downward mobility in the encyclopedic entry «Intellectuals» (1932) and in his last book Nuovi studi sulla classe politica (1936), endorsing Mussolini for having encouraged social mobility. The study of Michels’ ideas on displacement over a thirty years span shows the paradoxical coherence of his intellectual parable: all his life long, in a perpetual dispute with socialdemocratic reformism from the extreme left to extreme right, he blamed the embourgeoisement of the working class while praising the downgrading of the bourgeoisie. In some sense, the michelsian theory of social change is a self-fulfilling prophecy about his own political engagement in fascism and represents a key to understanding social unrest.