Historically, the most important status marker apart of money and looks was aristocracy. But the history of capitalism is also the history of the struggle between bourgeoisie against aristocracy. This struggle starts at the end of the middle ages when the citizens of the cities, organized as merchants in guilds etc., became so powerful that they used Calvin, Luther and Co. as their mouthpieces against Roman Catholic aristocracy and some dude in Rome ruling over them. The struggle between them was finished and decided when new means of production with the industrialization came into the hands of this bourgeoisie. At least since then, an impoverished aristocracy lost more and more power and therefore money until they were - at best - reduced to decoration.
There is a famous passage in Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" (1913) somehwere, where he describes how these different people come together, there is some old aristocracy, some new bourgeoisie money, an artist, a politician, clergy and so on, and he weaves this lengthy, genius sentence how all of them have a specific kind of status/power and it's all intrigue and super complicated. Then, of course there is Bourdieus' "social capital" where he describes this middle class culture capital ... where you have some status from growing up in a middle class household and knowing about Marcel Proust etc.
But I think this is all over now or at least coming to an end. This is really one of the most crucial elements of capitalism, imho, that it cuts away all these status markers other than MONEY and SEX. The monopolization of all capital in the hands of a few billionaries who now want to rule the whole world and turn the rest of us into miserable wage slaves also resulted in racism suddenly becoming the mortal sin number 1. Aristocracy, the status of the rock star versus the status of the classical pianist who is liked by fewer people with more education, the middle class status, religious status, old aristocracy versus new money ....... no I think at least the TENDENCY today is that it all boils down toe MONEY and SEX. George Soros has more money, but Leonardo diCaprio has more sex (appeal) and more sex with hotter women.
