[muzani]

It's a part of our socioeconomic system. Our economy is run on carrots and sticks. The carrots have to look bigger and the sticks have to look bigger.

If we stopped caring so much about grades, the education system wouldn't work as planned. If we didn't care about salary, the workforce system wouldn't work.

Past a certain point, food and housing is not that big an influence on workforce. Hence status symbols.

Another aspect: animals crave both status and territory. As time goes on, we start to own less and less 'territory' (smaller houses, less transportation, less long term jobs, even our movies and music aren't our own). So we make up for it by trying to own more things, or trying to project our status with status symbols.