Conspicuous consumption

[Charles Brown <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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

^^^^^^

Veblen's thesis probably applies to petit bourgeoisie and nouveau riche more
than the haute bourgeoisie. One dimension of the bourgeois finesse is that
it is less conspicuous, more private, often secret even (who owns today's
hedge funds ?) , than previous ruling classes from feudalism and slavery.
The bourgeoisie really put the "private" into private property.

There are a few celebrities each period - Thomas Jefferson,John Jacob Astor,
McCormick, Jay Gould, JP Morgan, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, ( 30's to 50's
underground so as not to stir up the revolution more and anonymous
technocrats, hiding up in the air with Howard Hughes; fantasizing with
Disney), Gates, Walton , and others. The great mass of the class are
relatively invisible to the working masses.

Charles