Even in the early 1800s social issues were more or less the same as they are now.

I'm not sure if this is the fitting interpretation.

Dickens exposed the flaws of this world but it's up to us not to mistake the coat for the character.

How did it come to this in the first place? I strongly suspect it stems from feudalism, where clothing reflected one’s social standing. It wasn’t the clothes that made the man; rather, everyone was identified by their social status through their clothing. It had little to do with character. It was a dress code for social status. It was not the intention to reverse the direction of this trend and pass oneself off as a king by wearing a royal cloak.

Such a reversal began with the rise of the middle classes and the dominance of wealth over the nobility. Whilst no one still had the audacity to wear the royal cloak, the bourgeoisie began to differentiate themselves into the poorer and the richer.

(Translated with DeepL.com (free version))

From hence, it was seductive to push oneself forth with clothing, I think.

To classify people by their academic status is yet another thing. It is - as far as I can see - far more a trial to simplify one own's world: I build some classification, or rather: I take some classification others had built and reduce by that the difficulties to estimate each person individually.