[mhardcastle]

Social status is positional and follows arms race dynamics. Everyone would have more money and nobody would suffer worse ring-positional-status if everyone spent proportionately less.

Also, there is a deep body of economics and psychology literature describing how individual spending decisions are sometimes suboptimal in predictable ways, particularly that we under-value experiential purchases.

It doesn't contradict general "live and let live" principles to think that cultural emphasis on positional goods is bad, nor that individuals might be better off if they made different consumption choices.