I have no personal experience with this phenomenon, but looking at it from the outside I do see one potential benefit: formalizing class distinctions in that ma

I have no personal experience with this phenomenon, but looking at it from the outside I do see one potential benefit: formalizing class distinctions in that manner must make it a lot harder to 'manufacture consent' when there's a conflict between the best interests of different classes. In Western culture there's a lot of ability to move between social classes by historical standards, and that's probably a good thing, but there are a number of downsides. The tendency to not acknowledge class differences at all can lead to a lot of doublespeak about what would benefit the least fortunate classes, and a lot of extra energy spent by the downwardly mobile wealthy to exclude lower classes in roundabout ways. Formal divisions between social classes would make it a lot harder to confuse the less wealthy when their interests aren't aligned with the more wealthy. In India for example, my understanding is that the 'shopkeeper' class used to be quite low in the hierarchy, but with the change in global economics, an awful lot of important institutions are now being run by 'shopkeepers', who I presume would have seen those opportunities in a collective way and helped each other capitalize on them, rather than see themselves as no different from the incumbent warrior or priest classes when they arose.