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Vladimir_M comments on Unknown knowns: Why did you choose to be monogamous? - Less Wrong
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Even if appealing traits are distributed unevenly, the most appealing people will still only have the time for a limited number of relationships at a time. In a monogamous world leads to high-appeal people being paired with high-appeal people and low-appeal people being paired with low-appeal people. I would expect the same phenomenon to mainly persist in a polyamorous world, with the exception that it wouldn't be just couples anymore and, for the reasons you note, the stratification would probably be somewhat less harsh.
I'm not sure if there is any actual evidence for this conclusion. In a polyamorous world (and considering for simplicity only heterosexual relationships), if women of all levels are strongly inclined towards the upper tiers of men, to the point where they prefer a polyamorous arrangement involving more women than men, but restricted to men of higher appeal, this can lead to far more inequality than any monogamous world. In this scenario, it may happen that men from the lower tiers get shut out of access to women altogether, while those from the top enjoy arrangements involving many women and few men, or even exclusive polygynous arrangements. Among women, too, there would be a severe stratification with regards to how favorable arrangements are realistically available to them depending on their attractiveness.
Considering the evidence from quasi-polyamorous behaviors that are widespread nowadays, i.e. serial monogamy and promiscuity, this scenario doesn't seem at all unlikely to me. Of course, these behaviors are not identical to what would happen in a hypothetical polyamorous society, but they still provide significant information about the revealed preferences of both men and women.
Personally, I've seen more examples of polyamorous arrangements involving more men than women than the opposite. Of course, this might be just sampling bias, and obviously it would hardly be any better if men were the ones who got shafted.
I'm pretty sure there is a decisive sampling bias there, since men in the top tiers of attractiveness are, in all likelihood, severely underrepresented among those practicing explicit "card-carrying" polyamory. Therefore, it seems to me that the patterns of quasi-polyamorous behaviors that are widespread in the general population provide a much better indication as to what would happen if polyamory became the general norm -- and these point pretty clearly towards the scenario I described above.
Why?
I know several incredibly attractive men in the poly community; my sample is small enough that I can't say such men are over-represented in the poly community, but I would be very surprised if your assumption were correct.
I would guess that Vladimir_M is using attractiveness in a broader sense than merely physical. Since power, wealth and status are important components of attractiveness for most women when judging men and since being openly polyamorous would be somewhat problematic for men in many traditionally high status positions it is likely that they will be underrepresented. They are also likely to be overrepresented in non-open / non-consensual non-monogamy.
I was likewise using attractiveness in that broader sense. I can't speak to wealth, but the poly subculture contains men with plenty of power and status within the poly subculture. Status only has meaning within a particular social context; evaluating a poly man's status in the context of the greater monogamous culture is no more meaningful than evaluating a monogamous man's status in the poly subculture. It's apples and oranges.
Your definition of attractiveness makes no sense in the context of Vladimir_M's post.
I'm not sure of Vladimir's reasoning, but I might speculate that men at the top tiers of attractiveness don't even need to join the poly community to have multiple partners.
Furthermore, being poly may have certain correlates (e.g. geekiness) that are only attractive to subsets of the female population (e.g. the subset that is poly).
HughRistik:
Yes, that's pretty much what I had in mind. For a man of very high attractiveness, becoming a card-carrying polyamorist is a deal that brings no real benefit for the cost. Such men already have a rich array of options in which they'll have the upper hand, including polygynous arrangements.
As I understand it, polyamory is having multiple committed relationships, not just multiple partners. I don't think having multiple partners is limited to only the "top tiers of attractiveness" for men; I think it's fairly common.
I doubt anyone joins the poly community just to have multiple partners; it seems like way too much work building relationships for that, when you could just find friends with benefits. Someone who just wanted multiple partners would likely not bother; however, people who have been in successful poly relationships likely have a lot of experience and practice in dealing with sex and emotions and managing relationships, which would increase their attractiveness.