That’s the Marxist analysis and there might be something to it, but I think the main driver is just human nature.
People like to feel superior. In one era that was “I’m a devout Christian from a good family unlike those other whores and sodomites,” in another it was “I’m a hard working industrialist unlike those lazy, old money playboys,” and now it’s “I’m a social worker dealing with the problems of BIPOC folx, unlike those finance bros that only care about money.”
Right, this is not a new phenomenon. Whether it's meaningful to pin it on human nature, I'm not sure; we consider ourselves unique as a species largely for our ability to recursively adapt the environment to ourselves, and then ourselves to the new state of affairs, and so on. We do generally prefer to think we're smart and good and well-informed and justified in our decisions, no doubt. We also usually prefer to keep what we have, which could be taken to support the traditional Marxist line.
All I'm saying is in an attention economy, one does well to reflect and ask who benefits from one's beliefs and their mode of expression. Substitute money for power, reputation, or any scarce social resource, and I think the analysis still tends to work, whether or not it echoes Marx.
People like to feel superior. In one era that was “I’m a devout Christian from a good family unlike those other whores and sodomites,” in another it was “I’m a hard working industrialist unlike those lazy, old money playboys,” and now it’s “I’m a social worker dealing with the problems of BIPOC folx, unlike those finance bros that only care about money.”