Re: [Pen-l] The Ratchet Effect

[Charles Brown <cdb1003@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

 Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


> Charles Brown wrote:
> > How much of our higher standard of living is
> > due to a rachet effect ,and  growth-is-good and work
> ethics ?
> 
> it's not the higher standard of living

^^^^
CB: Right. I meant "higher" standard of 
living, intending to interrogate the
term "higher".

^^^^^


 as much as the
> amount of
> consumption spending that's due to ratchet effects and
> the like.
> 
> I like going back to James Duesenberry, who (I think)
> invented the
> ratchet effect for consumer spending. (You can also see it
> with
> prices.) It's a result of consumerism. With capitalism
> and its market
> mentality increasingly replacing tradition, explicit
> hierarchy, and
> democracy as ways of organizing society, how does someone
> prove his or
> her worth to the rest of society? by having more income, by
> spending
> more of it on consumer goods.


CB: I guess keeping up with the Jones
comes in here somewhere.

> 
> -- 
> Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le
> genti." (Go your own
> way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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