Megan has an elegant review in the Wall Street Journal of Shinny Objects and Against Thrift, two new books on Consumer Culture and Inequality
A couple of notes. First, its perhaps the highest praise to Robin Hanson that these few lines shocked me
One of the running themes of the economist Robin Hanson’s excellent blog is that arguments like the ones found in these books are actually an elite-status proxy war. They denigrate the one measure of high-visibility achievement—income—that public intellectuals don’t do very well on. Reading "Shiny Objects," you get the feeling that he is onto something.
As I read those lines I had two reactions, the first was “oh yeah I got that from Robin” and the second was, “wait a minute there is some alternative belief system about these things.”
The more substantive comment I want to make though is to note that I have such trouble getting these discussions. It really seems like something is being talked about and its virtually indisputable that the participants are attached to the conclusions that are drawn but I can quite make out what its all about.
For example Megan writes
Like their forebears in this robust polemical genre, neither Mr. Livingston nor Mr. Roberts gets us much closer to answering the essential questions: What makes American consumers spend as they do—and is it a bad thing? For some thoughts on these matters, I’d suggest turning to James B. Twitchell’s "Living It Up" (2002), a wry account of the author’s own complicated relationship with luxury brands that explores the moral and psychological aspects of our free-spending ways without seeming to be a paternalist rant against the folly of BMWs. "The pleasure of spending is the dirty little secret of affluence," says Mr. Twitchell, a professor of English literature and advertising at the University of Florida. "The rich used to do it; now the rest of us are having a go." He is keenly alive to the risks—and occasional risibility—of American-style consumerism. But he never pretends not to understand its undeniable appeal.
What is all this supposed to mean?
First, that a relationship with luxury brands can be complicated – I get this because I see people having strong emotional reactions about these things.
But, what moral and psychological aspects of our free-spending ways? Is there really something to be explained here? We marshal resources with the intent that they should be enjoyed. What would be the point to people constraining their enjoyment of them. Why are we doing any of this then?
And, why should the pleasure of spending be a dirty secret and of affluence, no less? The poor don’t want to buy things? Are we to suggest that people should not shop in public? Is the act somehow obscene?
And, what are the risks of American-style consumerism? Is there a safer form?
I know that people mean something by these things because they keep talking about them and act as if they understand one and even disagree with one another. However, this whole matter is just deeply, deeply bewildering to me.
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Saturday ~ November 26th, 2011 at 9:51 pm
Curt Doolittle
This is the topic we should discuss. I know you can’t imagine the world is more complicated than your models suggest, in the oh-so-brief period of data that we possess. I know you think this is the end of history. But it isn’t.
If any population had property rights, common law, and fiat currency, would it result in prosperity for that population? Or are there other ‘economies’ that economic systems depend upon?
Why do italians, greeks and irish peoples, or Japanese or, Sudanese populations behave differently?
Or is there nothing unique about the protestants?
And if the germanic speaking countries somehow vanished tomorrow would the world be a different place or not?
Saturday ~ November 26th, 2011 at 9:52 pm
Curt Doolittle
Which cultures hold land and build institutions, and which don’t. And why?
Several property and non-corruption being the most difficult institutions to create.
Saturday ~ November 26th, 2011 at 10:02 pm
Johnnie Linn
Ian Fleming is a good author to read about the relationship of people to things, in particular, about the relationship of people to particular brands of things. In his novels, he will identify the particular kind of motor on the Disco Volante. James Bond muses on a 5-litre Bently with the 3:4 gear ratio and the Amherst-Villier supercharger. Dr. No installs Otis elevators in his rock-bound fastness.
One story in particular, “The Hildebrand Rarity”, matches the love that connoiseurs and collectors have for things with the unbridled greed of the villian Krest. There appears to be a “good” way to relate to things and a “bad” way that is unrelated to affuence but rather, to the appreciation, or knowledge, that a person has to the thing.
Saturday ~ November 26th, 2011 at 10:29 pm
Lord
It does raise the question if this is all a game of elite status then why don’t people simply hang signs with their income around their necks. Of course there are those who press their rank on the 400 list, but money as status is as much as what one does with it as how much one earns and offers many other dimensions to designate ones distinctiveness and uniqueness from consumption and investment to philanthropy, and less about such ends than their conspicuousness. Presumably it is this vaunting that is both the most satisfying as well as the most vulgar, the most costly as well as the least socially beneficial, the most enjoyable as well as the most immoral since it derives its value extrinsically by others not being able to afford them than intrinsically enjoying them for themselves,
Friday ~ December 2nd, 2011 at 12:08 pm
Curt Doolittle
They don’t hang signs because that would be ‘crude’. Just as some women are incredibly sensitive to ‘shoes’, people demonstrate their status through expressions of taste: taste being situational excellence that attracts attention. Usually expressions of taste consist of scarce items that required the time and attention of human beings.
Status controls mating. Women are hypergamic. Men are more widely distributed than women, creating a shortage of desirable men. Signaling among men consists of calories and people under their control due to their actions on the world. Signaling among women consists of calories and people under their control due to their ability to attract and maintain attention.
People NEED status signals in a market economy just as much as they need pricing signals. Human thought, choice, and cooperation would be impossible without them. It may seem horrible to contemplate, but it is true.
Status signals are necessary in order to transmit successful behavior that can be imitated.
Sunday ~ November 27th, 2011 at 12:48 am
Your Mother
This obtuse post, coupled with the constant reminder of your callowness that is your banner (a cropped softcore-porn photo), has led me to unsubscribe from this blog, for which I have paid nothing. Please do not contact me to attempt to get me to re-subscribe.
I said good day.
Sunday ~ November 27th, 2011 at 9:09 am
Becky Hargrove
What we possess, and what we would desire to possess in our lifetimes, is an important part of our own path to spiritual awareness however it may unfold.
Sunday ~ November 27th, 2011 at 10:32 am
Noumenon
Not sure if the above commenter is pretending to be your mother or your mother is overly familiar with soft porn.
I think the thing you’re missing is suffering — it is kind of obscene that we spend our money on things we don’t even use when it has the potential to prevent things like toothache and hunger. I live in a one-room apartment as my concession to that moral discomfort.
Sunday ~ November 27th, 2011 at 10:45 am
jpersonna personna
I hang with some people who avoid overt luxury goods, but do compete on fitness and travel. Just an observation that there are variations in status competition in American subcultures. I think I’m with those (Pinker?) who put status competition as a universal.
Friday ~ December 2nd, 2011 at 12:08 pm
Curt Doolittle
Exactly.
Sunday ~ November 27th, 2011 at 1:43 pm
Steve the hyena
We perceive it as dishonest.
Luxury goods are not simply expensive, but they have qualities which are meant to be appreciated by the sophisticated. Conspicuous consumption of these goods is therefore something of a lie in many cases, signaling qualities the buyer neither has nor cares about. By severely punishing these consumers, we allow the purchase of goods to signal the interests and qualities of the buyer.
Luxury goods are also expensive, naturally, but this signal only matters to our reptilian brain. The reality is that we live in a very affluent society where marshaling resources is something most people can do. In the developing world, attitudes towards conspicuous consumption are different, as are attitudes among groups with lower average incomes in the developed world. But for people who are in reality all fantastically wealthy, punishing people who display it conspicuously helps suppress our worst impulses and thereby keeps us from bad mating decisions.
Friday ~ December 2nd, 2011 at 12:10 pm
Curt Doolittle
Using lies to signal is not limited to human beings or to the unsophisticated. Half the complex organisms on the planet do it.
(Reminds me of that recent humorous paper that went viral on the relationship between phallus size and IQ. )
Friday ~ December 2nd, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Asymptosis » Capital in the American Economy Since 1930: Kuznets Revisited
[...] Reserve System plus several other books, has been getting play lately from Megan McArdle and Karl Smith (again among others) for his new book, Against Thrift: Why Consumer Culture is Good for the [...]
Sunday ~ December 11th, 2011 at 7:10 am
samb
Karl, I would think that the argument that you are missing in the phrase “”The pleasure of spending is the dirty little secret …”, is that the pleasure comes not from the goods and services acquired but from the act of “spending” … something that (representing a loss of resources) would normally be expected to be a negative experience.