The philosopher Hannah Arendt spoke of the “growing admiration of the good and wealthy classes for the underworld” in the 19th century. She noted that “this wealthy class gradually yielded to every moral question and began to favor anarchic cynicism.” In simpler terms, an immoral lifestyle and the underworld became fashionable.

This also characterized the fin de siècle period at the end of the 19th century. Arendt pointed out the astonishing affinity between populist right-wing ideology and the ideology of bourgeois society.