They do not know what to do with their windfall fortunes, nor how to convince their peers, friends, acquaintances, and the general public that they have swiftly ascended the ladders of prosperity, civilization, and wealth—so rapidly, in fact, that they now count themselves among the legendary elite and aristocracy.

Sometimes, they showcase their financial power at weddings or funerals in extravagant ways. Other times, they leave onlookers stunned with their bizarre and expensive cars. They spend lavishly on American, European, or Turkish brands—companies all too aware of their crude tastes and limitless money—using these products in their homes, gardens, villas, and even religious ceremonies. They purchase artistic achievements, born of pain, effort, and sacrifice, and, through social media, parade them with arrogant pride before people still struggling for basic shelter and food.

They impose themselves on nature and the environment through their wealth: destroying forests, mountains, and pastures for villa construction; capturing rivers and springs; taking over coastal shores; polluting the air for profit. In their homes, they keep lions, tigers, crocodiles, artworks, and collections of cars and motorcycles—not out of any appreciation but simply because these are expensive objects. They hire servants for these possessions but deny them basic rights.

Having risen suddenly from the depths of society to its highest echelons, disoriented and stripped of any understanding of who they are, they use money as the sole currency to bargain for a new identity—linking every aspect of their being to wealth in the most grotesque way.

They are the nouveaux riches—the immediate byproduct of a diseased economy under the rule of political Islam. Favored guests at the table of the Islamic Republic, their fortunes often stem from the fraudulent privatization of public assets, state-sanctioned rent-seeking, and uniquely “Islamic” economic inventions for siphoning off public wealth: preferential currency rates, fuel and goods smuggling, non-repayable large loans, ideological budgets, brokerage commissions on government deals, and so on.

In a country where porters carry refrigerators and washing machines on their backs over border mountains to feed their families—only to be shot dead by zealous border guards—or in Baluchistan, where fuel smugglers live (and die) by the barrel of a gun, while class mobility becomes increasingly unattainable and the dreams of the underclass fade into hopelessness, the children of the elite race down the streets in million-dollar cars. When one of these joyrides ends in the death of a poor pedestrian, they shout: “So what if we killed someone? We’ll pay the blood money!” (1)

In the past, acquiring economic capital generated a distinct lifestyle and aesthetic—an accumulation of symbolic capital that, over time, mingled with the lives of lower classes. Aristocrats viewed wealth as a destined virtue and imposed its cultural codes on society. Through symbolic capital, they established legitimacy.

But in the theatrical narrative of the Islamic Republic, wealth accumulation, aristocracy, and luxurious living are deemed immoral and reprehensible—publicly scorned. Yet behind closed doors, the rulers seize and hoard the people’s wealth in unethical ways. They live opulently, seek medical care in Europe, build gem-studded villas, and outshine even kings and emperors in luxury—only to step behind podiums and advise the people to eat “simple soup.”

It is at this historical juncture that a regime built on lies and theft leads society into moral crisis. Language is corrupted, the foundations of culture and art are damaged, and the underprivileged face serious cultural peril.

In a pathological trend, the children of these rulers—believing limitless wealth equals limitless power—tear down the veil of their fathers’ hypocrisy with a single gesture. They perform a dark comedy of uncultured affluence amid the wasteland they themselves have created.

The brief tale of the nouveau riche reveals how the prioritization of wealth over ethics, and the use of money as a tool to flaunt social and political superiority, actively erodes social values and imposes an unethical dominance over society.

Pierre Bourdieu, the renowned French sociologist, analyzes the nouveau riche through his theory of “capital” and “distinction.” (2) According to Bourdieu, while the nouveau riche may possess economic capital, they lack cultural capital—education, taste, literacy, and the social manners historically cultivated by the upper classes. This disparity causes their lifestyle to appear “performative,” “exaggerated,” and lacking in symbolic finesse.

To compensate for this absence, the nouveau riche turn to compulsive consumption and luxury goods, hoping to mask their cultural gap. But without having internalized the habitus—the ingrained dispositions of the upper classes—their imitation always appears clumsy, sometimes even ridiculous. Thus, they become a symbol of the gap between wealth and culture: rich, but rootless within the symbolic order of the elite.

Georg Simmel, the prominent German sociologist, in his analysis of “parvenus” or newly wealthy individuals, argues that they exist between two worlds: a past devoid of power and status, and a sudden present filled with new resources. (3) This dissonance between “old identity” and “new position” locks them into constant struggle. To cement their status, the nouveau riche mimic the behaviors, language, appearances, and tastes they associate with the upper class. But because these imitations are not rooted in lived experience, they often appear over-the-top and performative.

According to Simmel, instead of learning how to be, the nouveau riche are obsessed with appearing. Because their newfound status is not yet internalized, they constantly seek external validation. As a result, they are more dependent than others on goods, luxury, and symbols of consumption.

Simmel sees this not as a personal weakness but as a symptom of the “monetary economy” and a “surface-oriented culture”—a society that assigns value to appearances, not internal quality. In his view, the nouveau riche is a mirror showing how society constructs status through spectacle. And it is this constant performance that ties their fate to a hidden paradox: possessing much, but enjoying little. (4)

In their desperate pursuit of validation, the nouveau riche are draining a country—already ravaged by nearly fifty years of ideological rule—of its last remnants of dignity, ethics, trust, and social capital. They normalize exploitation, idleness, parasitism, and bullying, entrenching the machinery of domination and human subjugation.

Society must find a way to rise above this cultural, artistic, moral, and social collapse. Perhaps by recommitting to the covenant signed in the blood of the people in November 2019 (Aban 1398) and the autumn of 2022 (Mehr–Aban 1401)—and by remaining faithful to the genuine aspirations of the people—there lies an escape route from this absolute evil. By returning to the literature, art, and popular culture of Iran, we may reclaim a path forward.

References

1. “So What If We Killed Him? We’ll Pay the Blood Money!” – Your Opinion on This Video?, Alef News and Analysis Network, May 20, 2019 (30 Ordibehesht 1398).

2. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (R. Nice, Trans.). Harvard University Press.

3. Simmel, G. (2004). The Philosophy of Money (T. Bottomore & D. Frisby, Trans.). Routledge.

4. Simmel, G. (1957). “Fashion.” American Journal of Sociology, 62(6), 541–558.

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