Re: Conspicuous consumption

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Louis Proyect wrote:
>
> ECONOMIC SCENE
> NY Times, January 6, 2005
> Doctoral Thesis Says Rich People Spend More on Conspicuous Things
> By ALAN KRUEGER
>
> Now, Ori
> Heffetz, a doctoral student in economics at Princeton University, has
> developed the first broad-gauged index of product visibility. Sure enough,
> he finds in his thesis that conspicuous items make up a greater share of
> the consumption budget in wealthier families.

I don't think studies of the "wealthier families" _ever_ tell us much
about the _really_ wealthy families (the upper 2% or, especially, the
upper 0.05% that are the core of wealth. One would want to know more
about this study, but my bet would be that it focused on those in the
lower half of the upper 10%: those whose wealth comes from high salaries
(and often from _two_ high salaries). After the 1930s the_very_
wealthiest tended to be a bit more unconspicuous. One huge instance of
the conspicuous consumption of the u.s. ruling class in the 1950s got
blown up on 9/11. I think someone (perhaps a Monthly Review writer) made
this point a few decades ago, using the WTC as his/her example.

Carrol