They’re literally doing capitalism. M - C - M’ is described in the first part of Capital. This is money operating as capital. Buy a commodity for M, then sell it for M’ that is greater than M. You have no interest in the use value of the commodity. The only thing that matters is it’s exchange value.
I don’t think most people seek out people they’re better than. Most of them want to be able to assume that everyone else is equally well off. But those treats are basically bribes to look the other way when they see poverty, so it’s not much different from the lifestyle of a corrupt official being interrupted because they stopped receiving their bribes