There was plenty of materialism in previous generations.
Instead of cars they had fine horses to ride or to pull fancy expensive carriages.
Without referigerators, good food was more expensive to buy and keep and store and prepare so that too, was more for the rich then the poor.
Instead of cleaning equipment they had servants (who back then were more like slaves working for pittance wages and who could be ordered around almost like the families property).
The more servents the more prestige the people who had them had.
They had huge fancy houses on many acres of land, or alternately, top floors of city buildings that were exclusive and only the wealthy could get into.
Instead of doing hard sweaty work they could travel to cooler climates for summer and relax.
They had sailing yachts and fine fancy furniture and chandliers and huge amounts of expensive jewlry to show off.
And of course just like today, there was a very big difference between the clothes of a poor person and the fancy expensive hand made clothes of those could afford to show they “had good taste” in clothes.
Just because they did not have Ipods and high speed internet access, hardly means there was nothing to strive for materially speaking or that there was nothing for a poor person to be jealous of (if he did not have enough bitachon, just like one might struggle with, today).
In some respects the rich had more then we can have today.
They were able to buy vast tracts of land to view and go horseback riding through while these days it is considered
to be “too showy” even for rich people to have that much in a way that everyone can know about it.
It can still be done today, but it often brings on much criticism, even from other rich people.