Hazy memories of Anthro 200 wandering through my mind informs me the increase in goods destruction was linked to the ability to destroy valuable goods without removing the necessary amount of high value goods from the society and to maintain the status hierarchy.  In other words, any society can only have X amount of high value goods; once X is passed high status individuals seek to reduce the circulating surplus back to X to keep their status.

 

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre