We had a similar discussion in a French literature class.
French IV, high school, 1972. We had been reading Zola, and had read Balzac.
We came to a similar conclusion as you have expressed, about our contemporary times, based on the observations of French writers of the 19th and early 20th centuries. We also concluded that the strategy of the middle class was to establish itself as better than the poor from the perspective of public morality and delicacy, and that once you are rich, you can abandon morality if you want. With sufficient money, we saw, you can behave any way you want to because you can.
There is nothing new under the sun.