social inequality derives from the distinction between the haves and the have-nots, and the maintaining of the hierarchy is fundamental in safeguarding status as Thorstein Veblen explained.  In our present advertising filled and brand driven world, having luxury objects  seems more intensely desired and equally resented than at any other time.  Hence, we have this growing anger driven by absence of possession and an equal impulse to obliterate what you can’t. Perhaps looting and burning are based on identical impulses that seek to gratify similar desires. For these have-not dysfunctional shoppers not buying, not participating in the consumer game is a kind of open wound permeating an identity of zero self-esteem and the stigma of marginalization. In a roundabout way its equated with an absence of   individual dignity and of meaning in their lives.

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