There’s a worthwhile article from University of Cambridge Ph.D. candidate and U.S. Air Force veteran Rob Henderson at Quillette. Henderson takes Thorstein Veblen’s observation in The Theory of the Leisure Class that America’s moneyed elite engaged both in profligate patterns of consumption and arcane forms of leisure to signal their wealth and social status to society at large — and applies it to our age, with its radically different incentives and mores.
The mass availability of consumer goods made possible by global capitalism has rendered the ostentatious consumption of such goods inadequate as a class marker. Henderson asserts that, in the vacuum created by mass consumption, elites in Ivy League universities and popular culture have sought to distinguish themselves from the masses by adhering to a set of “luxury beliefs.” He writes:
The chief purpose of luxury beliefs is to indicate evidence of the believer’s social class and education. Only academics educated at elite institutions could have conjured up a coherent and reasonable-sounding argument for why parents should not be allowed to raise their kids, and should hold baby lotteries instead. When an affluent person advocates for drug legalization, or anti-vaccination policies, or open borders, or loose sexual norms, or uses the term “white privilege,” they are engaging in a status display. They are trying to tell you, “I am a member of the upper class.”
Affluent people promote open borders or the decriminalization of drugs because it advances their social standing, not least because they know that the adoption of those policies will cost them less than others.
You can read the rest of his insightful article here.