Conspicuous consumption

Conspicuous consumption is a term used to describe the lavish spending on goods and services that are acquired mainly for the purpose of displaying income or wealth. In the mind of a conspicuous consumer, such display serves as a means of attaining or maintaining social status. A very similar but more colloquial term is "keeping up with the Joneses".

Invidious consumption, a necessary corollary, is the term applied to consumption of goods and services for the deliberate purpose of inspiring envy in others.

These terms are not used descriptively for behavioral disorders such as binge eating and compulsive spending.

History and evolution of the term

Thorstein Veblen

THEY SPEND ALL OF THEIR MONEY BUYING POOPY,PEE, AND GOLDFISHIES.....AND SOME MORE POO. .... THAT THEY ATE. YUM The term conspicuous consumption was introduced by Norwegian American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen in his 1899 book The Theory of the Leisure Class. Veblen used the term to depict the behavioral characteristic of the nouveau riche, a new class that emerged in the 19th century capitalistic society as a result of the accumulation of wealth during the Second Industrial Revolution. In this context, the application of the term should be narrowed only to the elements of the upper class who use their enormous wealth to manifest their social power, whether real or perceived.

With significant improvement of living standards and the emergence of the middle class in the 20th century, the term conspicuous consumption is now broadly applied to individuals and households with expendable incomes whose consumption patterns are prompted by status seeking rather than their substantial needs and are thereby socially wasteful. As early as the 1920s, economists such as Paul Nystrom theorized that lifestyle changes brought on by the industrial age were inducing a "philosophy of futility" in the masses, which would increase fashionable consumption. Thus, the concept of conspicuous consumption has been discussed in the context of addictive or narcissistic behaviors induced by consumerism, the desire for immediate gratification, and hedonic expectations.

In recent years, conspicuous consumption has also been viewed as a contributing factor to behavioral disorders such as compulsive spending and is a major contributor to personal bankruptcies resulting from abuse and mismanagement of credit.

Social and economic effects

Since socio-economic status (the socially-created effects of wealth or income) is a positional good which is in fixed supply, any conspicuous consumption generates negative externalities. In fact, conspicuous consumption may be seen as the in-kind scarcity rent of socio-economic status. Minimizing economic inefficiency by capturing this rent and curbing wasteful consumption is an important argument for luxury taxes and other corrective policies. As John Stuart Mill argued:

[Luxury taxes] have some properties which strongly recommend them. In the first place, they can never [...] touch those whose whole income is expended on necessaries; while they do reach those by whom what is required for necessaries, is expended on indulgences. In the next place, they operate in some cases as [...] the only useful kind of sumptuary law. I disclaim all asceticism, and by no means wish to see discouraged, either by law or opinion, any indulgence (consistent with the means and obligations of the person using it) which is sought from a genuine inclination for, and enjoyment of, the thing itself; but a great portion of the expenses of the higher and middle classes in most countries [is incurred] from regard to opinion, and an idea that certain expenses are expected from them, as an appendage of station; and I cannot but think that expenditure of this sort is a most desirable subject of taxation. If taxation discourages it, some good is done, and if not, no harm; for in so far as taxes are levied on things which are desired and possessed from motives of this description, nobody is the worse for them. When a thing is bought not for its use but for its costliness, cheapness is no recommendation. As Sismondi remarks, the consequence of cheapening articles of vanity, is not that less is expended on such things, but that the buyers substitute for the cheapened article some other which is more costly, or a more elaborate quality of the same thing; and as the inferior quality answered the purpose of vanity equally well when it was equally expensive, a tax on the article is really paid by nobody: it is a creation of public revenue by which nobody loses.

See also

• Affluenza
• Commodity fetishism
• Conspicuous leisure
• Consumerism
• Keeping up with the Joneses
• Status symbol
• Positional good
• Veblen good
• Frugality
• Simple living
• Philosophy of futility
• Hummer
• Spinner (wheel)

References

• Veblen, Thorstein. (1899) Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study in the Evolution of Institutions. New York: Macmillan. 400 pp.

• 1994 Dover paperback edition, ISBN 0-486-28062-4
• 1994 Penguin Classics edition, ISBN 0-14-018795-2

External links

• Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen' at Project Gutenberg
• Thorstein Veblen: Conspicuous Consumption, 1902 at Fordham University's "Modern History Sourcebook"