Your point hits right to the heart of the matter. And it's why I utterly despise the rich so much. When I look out on the world, I don't see what is actual, rather I see all the lost potential(opportunity cost). It's heartbreaking. And it's not just how much wealth they take—it's also how much resources they divert from the natural ebb & flow of capital to support their meaningless, empty, wasteful lifestyles. And all for no practical reason other than keeping up with the Joneses. Meanwhile people are starving and killing each other in ghettos not 10 miles away.
It's funny how such a stat like the French textiles leaps right out in historical hindsight, yet every era of human history has it's own economic sinkhole into which the rich and the powerful throw societies collective wealth. I suppose for the present day US, instead of lavish dresses for the royals, it's lavish military spending for the gravy-train DoD fucktards. (We'll hit a $1 trillion defense budget in less than 5 years! If that doesn't make you want to take to the streets with a molotov, then nothing will). They don't realize it yet, because they are all narrow minded pigs blinded towards their own trough, but their economic parasitism will inevitable trigger another revolution in America. Malcom X's proverbial chickens will indeed come home to roost, and it's going to be simple, unsustainable economics that triggers it. Archaeologists will dig us up in 1,000 years and wonder why we couldn't see the pattern.
Wealth = Exploitation.
QED, bitches. If this belief makes me a radical socialist, so fucking be it! I know I'm right from a high level perspective.