Consumerism

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that "Conspicuous Consumption'' is the phenomenon of buying numerous services or products with the sole and explicit purpose of flaunting one's wealth. The author points out that the theories of Thorstein Veblen, explaining the sociological analyses of the actual origins of the different preferences of the consumers, can be used to clarify the ways in which (1) the upper classes generally attempt to differentiate and distinguish themselves from the lower classes by the purchase of luxury goods and services and (2) the lower classes attempt to emulate and imitate this type of behavior of the upper classes. The paper concludes that a lower price for one particular good, relative to other goods, automatically means that consumers are giving up less by the simple act of buying more of the cheaper good: This is the basic law of demand.

From the Paper:

"Friedman, in 1957, rejected outright any suggestion that interpersonal relations could have any sort of impact on consumerism, while others like Moregenstern in 1948 and Stigler in 1950 did indeed acknowledge the presence of such effects on consumerism. What, exactly, is the meaning of an interpersonal effect that has been started as a result of information versus behavior? It can be said that information economics would account for interpersonal effects in the case when the consumption of other people is taken as the evidence that the goods or the services have, in fact, been consumed, and this in turn would have the effect of resolving the uncertainty about the intrinsic utility that would be received from the very purchase of the good or the service. Therefore, information about the good or the service would have been obtained and other information about the resale value of the good and the price that will have to be paid for the product."

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• Essay # 73119 : "Consumerism and Society"
• Book Review # 126980 : "'White Noise' and Consumerism"
• Essay # 87480 : "Consumerism"

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