This was also the case in eastern Europe during the Cold war - some countries came quite close to being classless societies, but people there nevertheless made up a bunch of status symbols out of fairly ordinary items - like jeans. Young people didn't flinch at spending one-month worth of income for a pair of jeans, while scoffing at nearly identical non-denim trousers, at 1/20 the price

There were also the car number-plates. Out here in Romania having a 3-digit car-number plate meant you most probably were part of the nomenklatura (the local one, if you had a county-specific number-plate, the national one if your number-plate was from Bucharest). The "normal" people had 4-digit number-plates, while the great majority of people had no car at all. Quite interesting.

I've heard Saudis will similarly pay as much for their license plates as for their sports cars, repeating or alliterative numbers being highly desired.

Yes indeed:

https://www.regtransfers.co.uk/info/worlds-most-expensive-nu...

9 out of the top 10 are in UAE. Top price 7 million.

> some countries came quite close to being classless societies

This really does not comport with my own knowledge. At minimum there was always the nomenklatura and the ruled. None of the Soviet ruled states went as far as the Chinese in putting the boot on the educated class so the pre conquest educated class stayed relatively distinct. Soviet rule didn’t last that long. The extermination of the Jews and expulsion of the Germans had at least as large an impact on the class structure.

I believe, after survival, the #1 human driver is prestige. It is amazing how immediate it manifests. People moments after surviving imminent death will jockey for positions of influence with their saviors. It is baked into the human psyche, and as long as we ignore this Orwellian Driver of Human Personalities, we are doomed to repeating civilization wide failures.

Is there a specific example you are referring to re: “ People moments after surviving imminent death will jockey for positions of influence with their saviors”?