When have religion and "morality codes" meaningfully constrained elites? I can't think of an elite caste anywhere in history that is really even close to what a rational observer would call "moral". Yes, certain things are verboten in a given moral code (usury, for example), but elites either outsource it (e.g. to a "court Jew") or just do other evil stuff that isn't addressed in the code (and won't be, since they are the elites and therefore control things like that).