Theory of the leisure class 3

This is the final piece of the series about the great work of Thorstein Veblen.

The previous piece was about conspicuous leisure, showing the world that you can afford living without working. Now we can meet the other form of conspicuous waste: conspicuous consumption.

In short: consuming items in a way that does not increase our health or well-being, just to show the world that we can do it.

We can see it in primitive form, typically among people who were born and raised in poverty, but got money somehow (mostly by crime). They collect and wear ridiculous amount of gold, just to show the world that they can. They even call the people to "check this out!", to demonstrate how rich they are.

However among civilized people the rules of the conspicuous consumption are not less strong, just less obvious. The keyword is "beauty". The people buy these items, because they feel inside, that the item is beautiful, while the less extravagant items, serving the purpose just as well are "rude", "primitive" and "repulsive".

The first thing we to notice is that the sense of "beauty" is highly culture-dependent and very different in different countries. If the people would have some internal sense of beauty, every person would find the same things beautiful. Strike that, "beauty" changes within the same culture in time. Sometimes this change is extremely rapid, like clothing fashion. What's considered beautiful and "must be" in one year is "ugly" and "outdated" next year. Obviously no internal sense of beauty could adapt so fast. The point is to throw away our expensive clothes. The richest people have such an "elaborate sense of beauty" that they don't wear the same clothes twice.

The feelings of "Beauty" come from unconscious schemes detecting nothing else but conspicuous waste. The purpose of "beauty" is to solve the "problem" that the quantity of consumed goods cannot be increased endlessly. However by making the item more wastefully expensive we can increase its "beauty", therefore the status coming from consuming it.

While in small, closed communities, where people know each other, conspicuous leisure is perfect to show nobility. However in a big city where we barely know each other, the observation of each other is too short to show proper amount of noble waste of time. Here the main source of nobility is the conspicuous consumption of expensive items that are visible even to the careless and distant observer. These are mostly clothes and cars. It's not uncommon among poor families to have much higher "quality" car than home, strike that to have no home at all, just a rent flat and still have a new car.

The car is a perfect example of conspicuous consumption. Its useful purpose is to let a person travel. For this purpose every serviced car is OK. Yet people tend to sell their obviously useful car (otherwise they could not use them before, or if it just broke down, no one would buy it), just to buy a new one. The price difference is completely wasted. Someone who is not driven by the unconscious norms of conspicuous consumption would use his car until it becomes broken beyond repair.

Other unquestionable proof of the norms of conspicuous consumption is the fact that people tend to consume cheaper items in private than they do in the public eye. While you invite your friends to an elegant restaurant, you eat pizza or corn flakes alone. You wear suit and leather shoes (dress and heels) at work but T-shirt and slippers at home. If the expensive food or clothing would serve your well-being you wound not deny it from yourself at home.

One more proof: the "beauty of the handmade". The machines are capable of crafting items with 0.0001 mm accuracy, so if there would be some "beautiful shape", it would be easy to craft it by proper machines for cheap. No one would buy crude, handmade items. Yet the handmade items are expensive and found beautiful and noble. Why? Not because of their shape, that's for sure. For the wasted human work inside!

So: the people have unconscious mental schemes seeking waste in the items and call this waste "beauty". They are urged to consume such wasteful items when others see them.

In WoW the perfect example of conspicuous consumption of wasteful goods are mounts. The basic faction mounts serve the purpose of traveling perfectly. The new mounts like bears, dragons are no better, but perfectly serve the person's internal wish for conspicuous consumption of wasteful items. Mammoths and motorcycles have some extra value, motorcycles are vehicles like catapults with low HP (I've read somewhere they change it next patch), and Mammoths have vendors included (like there is not a little town with vendors in 1 minute distance from everywhere).

Besides these little extra value, they both can carry passengers. This is a real value add, theoretically can save all riding cost on another. Yet, unless you charge them for this taxi service, they are nothing more than vicarious consumers, who help you conspicuously consume your wasteful goods.