Got it, flaunt it

Recently someone described as a 'Kazakhstan billionairess' bought a home for £50m on the outskirts of Hampstead Garden Suburb. It was a story in the papers that ­ the price was the highest yet paid for a new house in Britain, ­ but it attracted no public complaint or resentment. We hardly noticed. Britain, like the rest of the world, has got used to the idea that there is no stopping the rich getting richer and rubbing our poorer noses in their excess.

Absurd displays of often ill-gotten wealth have become one of our great entertainments, whereas once they led to outbreaks of passionate hatred and served as the recruiting sergeants for socialism. Footballers regularly scoff £500 bottles of champagne, City bonuses are celebrated with lunch menus priced at £1,000 a head, but the old cry 'Something must be done!' rings very faint, while 'To the barricades!' is never heard at all. All across the world - Mumbai, Shanghai, Moscow - money is spectacularly flaunted without, so far, incurring any political cost.

In her photographs, Daniela Rossell demonstrates that the same is true of Mexico City. Some people there have lots of cash and are keen to show it off. Most of her subjects are the wives and daughters of nouveau-riche businessmen, politically well-connected.

According to the book's skimpy notes, Rossell encouraged these women to pose in a way that would best 'represent themselves'. If so (I am a sceptic when it comes to a photographer's boast of non-interference), then the average rich young Mexican woman has the same sense of discretion and thrift as a footballer's wife. Teenage followers of Britney and Paris will know that the look is easily emulated with a Saturday afternoon at Topshop and enough pocket money to spend on spike heels and tight, shiny dresses.

This being Mexico, the home decor isn't quite Cheshire; stuffed leopards prowl among gilt chairs and crucifixes hang above the teddy bears. But the women's pouting attitudes are borrowed straight from a mixture of Nuts and Hello magazines: a tension located somewhere between 'Come and fuck me' and 'Do have a look around my lovely home'. The style is bordello chic and by no means confined to Mexico.

Rossell's pictures are worth looking at for the lurid fantasy that seems to grip both photographer and subject. Whether they make a political point, as some reviewers in Spain and Mexico are anxious to claim, is more doubtful. They may be a freak-show, but, contrary to the notion that Rossell is 'insistently critical', my eye can detect no moral outrage behind the photographer's lens.

Mockery may just possibly be there, but the rich and stupid will never be laughed out of office.

Ricas Y Famosas (Rich and Famous), photographs by Daniela Rossell, published by Duckworth £20. ·