Well, they want to feel earnest. Their ideas make them feel moral and yet don’t damage their position.

In 1899, Thorstein Veblen published The Theory of the Leisure Class, highlighting conspicuous consumption as a means of the wealthy and powerful to distinguish themselves from ordinary citizens.

Times change and the competitive market economy has been a boon to all classes since 1899.  We produce far more complex goods for much less than we did in the past.  Which creates a challenge for those wishing to signal their social status by the goods they consume.

Rob Henderson commented on this in ‘Luxury beliefs’ are the latest status symbol for rich Americans by Rob Henderson.

In the past, upper-class Americans used to display their social status with luxury goods. Today, they do it with luxury beliefs.

People care a lot about social status. In fact, research indicates that respect and admiration from our peers are even more important than money for our sense of well-being.

We feel pressure to display our status in new ways. This is why fashionable clothing always changes. But as trendy clothes and other products become more accessible and affordable, there is increasingly less status attached to luxury goods.

The upper classes have found a clever solution to this problem: luxury beliefs. These are ideas and opinions that confer status on the rich at very little cost, while taking a toll on the lower class.

One example of luxury belief is that all family structures are equal. This is not true. Evidence is clear that families with two married parents are the most beneficial for young children. And yet, affluent, educated people raised by two married parents are more likely than others to believe monogamy is outdated, marriage is a sham or that all families are the same.

Relaxed attitudes about marriage trickle down to the working class and the poor. In the 1960s, marriage rates between upper-class and lower-class Americans were nearly identical. But during this time, affluent Americans loosened social norms, expressing skepticism about marriage and monogamy.

This luxury belief contributed to the erosion of the family. Today, the marriage rates of affluent Americans are nearly the same as they were in the 1960s. But working-class people are far less likely to get married. Furthermore, out-of-wedlock birthrates are more than 10 times higher than they were in 1960, mostly among the poor and working class. Affluent people seldom have kids out of wedlock but are more likely than others to express the luxury belief that doing so is of no consequence. 

His is an attractive hypothesis and I substantially agree though I think there are a few wrinkles and nuances not yet explicated.

Interestingly though, Henderson points out that the idea was expressed at least as early as 1881 in Portrait of a Lady by Henry James.  In surprisingly specific language.

“Of whom are you speaking?”

“Well, I mean Lord Warburton and his friends—the radicals of the upper class. Of course I only know the way it strikes me. They talk about the changes, but I don’t think they quite realise. You and I, you know, we know what it is to have lived under democratic institutions: I always thought them very comfortable, but I was used to them from the first. And then I ain’t a lord; you’re a lady, my dear, but I ain’t a lord. Now over here I don’t think it quite comes home to them. It’s a matter of every day and every hour, and I don’t think many of them would find it as pleasant as what they’ve got. Of course if they want to try, it’s their own business; but I expect they won’t try very hard.”

“Don’t you think they’re sincere?” Isabel asked.

“Well, they want to feel earnest,” Mr. Touchett allowed; “but it seems as if they took it out in theories mostly. Their radical views are a kind of amusement; they’ve got to have some amusement, and they might have coarser tastes than that. You see they’re very luxurious, and these progressive ideas are about their biggest luxury. They make them feel moral and yet don’t damage their position. They think a great deal of their position; don’t let one of them ever persuade you he doesn’t, for if you were to proceed on that basis you’d be pulled up very short.”

Communism, Socialism, Universal Basic Income,  Equality of Outcomes, Blank Slatism, Deconstructionism, Socially Constructed Reality, Heredity Denialism, etc. - All luxury beliefs intended to foster as sense of earnestness among the privileged at the expense of the ordinary.