Post-industrial materialism

To be a good materialist, in the strict sense, you need to be an excellent capitalist. 

Materialism (adj. materialistic) is the excessive desire to acquire and consume material goods. It is often bound up with a value system which regards social status as being determined by affluence (see conspicuous consumption) as well as the perception that happiness can be increased through buying, spending and accumulating material wealth.

Capitalist -  a person who has capital especially invested in business;broadly :  a person of wealth :  plutocrat

However, materialism is just a symptom of a more severe disease. Materialism is simply the food for an ego with an endless appetite. It briefly satiates the hunger we have for meaning and purpose. 

To me, it seems rather clear modern materialism is about positioning yourself socially above others and publicly demonstrating your wealth. Materialism used to offer some physical benefit in that it might provide for a more comfortable or tasty existence. However in a world we homeostasis is all but guaranteed for a middle class person, additional capital is mostly directed at more expensive brands and has increasingly less to do with comfort. 

Wealth has historically been the most direct way to demonstrate this to others. However, we are slowly transitioning to a new age. Credit has made wealth subject to skepticism and (because of the recession) it's also becoming increasingly unfashionable to be ostentatious. 

The social currency of our age is no longer (or at least it won't be for long) a nice car, a big house or nice clothes (particularly in an age when environmentalism is one of the highest values). What matters is the public projection of one's digital image. It doesn't cost anything. In many ways it boils down to three things: pictures with beautiful people, travel photos and photos doing extreme or interesting things. I am the worst offender. In the end it's about ego. All it does is eat at the soul of others. It's hollow. It's the new rat race. Today we accumulate media not capital.

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To be clear: I was contrasting capitalism and materialism with some friends (because they are often erroneously viewed as the same thing). In response a friend posted the definition of capitalist which is quite different (and quite similar, and likely the source of the confusion - we can thank Marx for that). I pointed out that you can be a humble, ecofriendly hermit who only uses barter and be a shining example of capitalism. The hallmarks of materialism: greed, industrial destruction, and ostentatious displays can exist under any economic system. Capitalism is simply an economic system that allows for the voluntary exchange of goods and services for mutual benefit. It says nothing about the underlying reasons for those transactions or the values of its participants.