Colin Campbell on Thorstein Veblen on conspicuous consumption

Journal of Economic Issues

Volumn 40, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 97-112

  Tilman, Rick ^a  

^a NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 33645785521     PISSN: 00213624     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00213624.2006.11506884     Document Type: Review

References (64)

1. For example, James Twitchell, who holds the only chair of English and advertising with which the author is familiar at the University of Florida, features Thorstein Veblen more than any other writer in both a scholarly and a popular vein. On Twitchell on Veblen on consumption see esp. Living It Up: America's Love Affair with Luxury (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003);
2. Lead Us into Temptation: The Triumph of American Materialism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999);
3. and "Two Cheers for Materialism," Wilson Quarterly 23, no. 2 (Spring 1999): 16-26. Twitchell is critical of all left-wing opponents of materialism and proponents of "austerity" including Veblen, his Institutionalist disciples such as J. K. Galbraith, and Theodor Adorno, the Frankfurt School, and most Marxists.
4. Colin Campbell, "Veblen's Theory of Conspicuous Consumption: A Critical Appraisal," Susiologisk Arbok (1996); 61-81;
5. "The Sociology of Consumption" in Acknowledging Consumption, edited by Daniel Miller, 96-121 (London and New York: Routledge, 1995);
6. "Conspicuous Confusion? A Critique of Veblen's Theory of Conspicuous Consumption," Sociological Theory 13, no. 1 (March 1995): 37-47;
7. The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989, 7-20, 43-57);
8. "The Desire for the New: Its Nature and Social Location as Presented in Theories of Fashion and Modern Consumerism" in Consuming Technologies, edited by Roger Silverstone and Erick Hirsch, 48-64 (London and New York: Routledge, 1992).
9. Consuming Technologies, Ibid., 62.
10. But it is also essential that the differences between the three versions of Veblen's conspicuous consumption which Campbell claims exist be further analyzed to achieve greater clarity. He wrote that-
11. What then can be concluded about these three strands of Veblen's conception of conspicuous consumption? Do they constitute a sufficient basis for an adequate definition of the phenomenon, either taken singly or in combination? Could they, for example, be employed as a basis for an operational definition to guide a program of research? Well, difficulties were noted in each case. The idea that conspicuous consumption is marked by some quality intrinsic to the activity itself is, as we have just seen, not very convincing. It may well be a form of conduct which is judged "wasteful" and "ostentatious" by some of those who observe it (in addition, in all probability, to some of those performing it), but this judgment is necessarily highly contextual and cannot in any case be assumed to overlap with expenditure which is incurred for status reasons. As far as reviewing conspicuous consumption as behavior which leads to specific consequences (or fulfills given functions) is concerned there are a range of problems. Firstly it naturally excludes conduct which, although marked by such intentions, fails to achieve its goal. Secondly, it includes conduct, which although marked by this outcome, was not prompted by any such intention. Thirdly, it fails to allow for other means of achieving the same goal (that is, functional alternatives). In other words, if an individual's conduct has succeeded in impressing others and thereby enhancing his status in their eyes it cannot automatically be assumed that this was the outcome of consumption activity; or indeed, even if it is so attributable it may not be "pecuniary strength" which served to impress but some personal quality such as generosity or style. (Ibid., 79-80)
12. Roger S. Mason, Conspicuous Consumption: A Study of Exceptional Consumer Behavior (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981, 42-45).
13. Mason perceptively commented on the risks inherent in empirical research on conspicuous consumption: The difficulties of attempting objective and reliable primary research into conspicuous behavior at the individual level have to be acknowledged. A major problem in seeking to undertake a program of empirical research lies in the fact that the conspicuous consumer, anxious to display wealth and gain in prestige, will rarely if ever explicitly admit to any such intentions. This is a rational decision on his part for any admission that money was or is being spent with a view to impressing others could produce an adverse reaction which would effectively nullify any possible gains from his expenditure. Societies in general insist that recognition and status are conferred upon but not overtly sought by individuals and it is therefore incumbent upon the status seeker to admit to no intention of "buying" such recognition. Given the understandable reticence of conspicuous consumers, therefore, to admit that they are in fact purchasing for display, primary research becomes very difficult. Furthermore, if such research were to be carried out, the data obtained and the conclusions drawn would necessarily be highly subjective and open to wrong interpretation. (Ibid., Roger S. Mason, Conspicuous Consumption: A Study of Exceptional Consumer Behavior 42)
14. Campbell, "Veblen's Theory of Conspicuous Consumption: A Critical Appraisal," 80.
15. Not all such investigators can be assumed to have strong pathological tendencies.
16. See Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: Augustus M. Kelly, 1975)
17. and Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1958).
18. Also, see Vance Packard, The Wastemakers (New York: David McKay, 1968)
19. and The Status-Seekers (New York: David McKay, 1959);
20. John Brooks, Showing off in America: From Conspicuous Consumption to Parody Display (Boston: Little, Brown A. Company, 1981);
21. Stephen Edgell, "Veblen and Post-Veblen Studies of Conspicuous Consumption: Social Stratification and Fashion," International Review of Sociology New Series, no. 3 (1992): 205-228;
22. and Tom Pendergast, "Consuming Questions Scholarship on Consumerism in America to 1940," American Studies International 36 (June 1998): 23-57.
23. Recent scholarship on Veblen and consumption includes Edgell, "Veblen's Theory of Conspicuous Consumption after 100 Years," History of Economic Ideas 7, no. 3 (1999): 99-125,
24. and Wilfred Dolsma, "Life and Times of the Veblen Effect," History of Economic Ideas 8, no. 3 (2000): 62-82.9.
25. See the following: George A. Akerlof, "A Theory of Social Custom, of Which Unemployment May Be One Consequence," Quarterly Journal of Economics 94, no. 4 (June 1980): 749-775;
26. R. L. Basmann et al.; "A Note on Measuring Veblen's Theory of Conspicuous Consumption," Review of Economics and Statistics 70, no. 3 (August 1988): 531-535;
27. Ottmar Braun and Robert Wicklund, "Psychological Antecedents of Conspicuous Consumption," Journal of Economic Psychology 10, no. 2 (June 1989): 161-187;
28. Harold Cole et al., "Social Norms, Saving Behavior, and Growth," Journal of Political Economy 100, no. 6 (December 1992): 1092-1125;
29. B. Douglas Bernheim, "A Theory of Conformity," Journal of Political Economy 102, no. 5 (October 1994): 841-877;
30. Ng Yew-Kwang, "Diamonds Are a Government's Best Friend: Burden-Free Taxes on Goods Valued for Their Values," American Economic Review 77, no. 1 (March 1987): 186-191;
31. Wolfgang Pesendorfer, "Design Innovation and Fashion Cycles," America's Economic Review 85, no. 4 (September 1995): 771-792;
32. Robert Frank, "The Demand for Unobservable and Other Nonpositional Goods," American Economic Review 75, no. 1 (March 1985): 101-116;
33. Kaushik Basu, "Monopoly, Quality Uncertainty, and 'Status Good,'" International Journal of Industrial Organization 5, no. 4 (December 1987): 435-446;
34. Lauri Simon Bagwell and B. Douglas Bernheim, "Veblen Effects in a Theory of Conspicuous Consumption," American Economic Review 86, no. 3 (June 1996): 349-373;
35. Edi Karni and David Schmeidler, "Fixed Preferences and Changing Tastes," American Economic Review 80, no. 2 (May 1990): 262-267;
36. and Philip R. P. Coelho and James E. McClure, "Toward an Economic Theory of Fashion," Economic Inquiry 31 (October 1993): 595-608.
37. For a penetrating analysis of part of this literature, see E. Ray Canterbery, "The Theory of the Leisure Class and the Theory of Demand," in the Founding of Institutional Economics, edited by Warren Samuels, 139-156 (London and New York: Routledge, 1998).
38. Ludwig von Mises, Epistemological Problems of Economics (Princeton, N.J.; Van Nostrand, 1960, 148).
39. Peter Earl penetratingly commented that-It is easy to see why orthodox economists have kept well clear of the topic: Conspicuous consumption behavior makes little sense if one habitually models consumers as if they are fully informed. Acts of conspicuous consumption are of their essence designed to emit signals - but in most cases to do so without appearing as though one is quite deliberately showing off. Thus conspicuous consumers, including neoclassical economists themselves, must not reveal the extent of their status-driven consumption to others, or to themselves (Peter E. Earl, ed., Psychological Economics, Boston: Kluwer, 1988, 7).
40. Veblen's exchange with his colleague John Cummings is important in this regard: There is a good deal of a consensus as to what manner of things are wasteful. The brute fact that the world is current shows that. Without something of a consensus on that head, the world would not be intelligible; that is to say, we should have no such world... . It is because men's notions of the generically human, of what is the legitimate end of life, does not differ incalculably from man to man that men are able to live in communities and to hold common interests. (Essays in Our Changing Order, New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1975, 18-19, author's emphasis) This is a key claim in the refutation of neoclassical agnosticism regarding the interpersonal comparison of utilities, for it suggests that if no such comparisons arc possible or relevant, there is no basis for social existence. How do human communities exist, much less endure, if their members have no common interests, merely individual interests? Campbell has little to say on the subject, at least in his writings on Veblen.
41. Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, 101. Unlike many neoclassical economists, Veblen at least had the virtue of being consistent in his identification of waste in both the public and private sectors; thus by "wasteful expenditures" he meant conspicuous consumption, as exemplified in the erection of certain types of public buildings, diplomatic expenditures, and military extravagances, In short, he recognized the relationship of wasteful private consumption to pyramids, gothic cathedrals, and wars. What thus follows is a brief analysis of Veblen's theory of the utility of commodities, a theory that is closely connected with his theory of wasteful consumption. It is interspersed with quotations from his Theory of the Leisure Class:
42. It would be hazardous to assert that a useful purpose is ever absent from the utility of any article or any service, however, obviously its prime purpose and chief element is conspicuous waste; and it would be only less hazardous to assert of any primarily useful product that the element of waste is in no way concerned in its value, immediately, or remotely. (154)
43. He then offered his theory of status emulation:
44. Goods are produced and consumed as a means to the fuller unfolding of human life and their utility consists, in the first instance, in their efficiency as a means to this end. . . . But the human proclivity to emulation has seized upon the consumption of goods as a means to an invidious comparison, and has thereby invested consumable goods with a secondary utility as evidence of relative ability to pay. (110)
45. According to Veblen, perhaps next to the instinct of self-preservation-
46. The propensity of emulation is probably the strongest and most alert of the economic motives proper. . . . The need of conspicuous waste, therefore, stands ready to absorb any increase in the community's industrial efficiency or output of goods, after the most elementary physical wants have been provided for. (259)
47. Ibid., 259.
48. Ibid., 311.
49. Ibid., 361.
50. Ibid., 221.
51. Ibid., 227.
52. See Ben Fine, "From Political Economy to Consumption," in Acknowledging Consumption, edited by Daniel Miller, 127 (London: Routledge, 1995). Miller commented that "Fine shows how neoclassical economics has used tautology and subterfuge to deny the presence of a consumer that would destroy its key premises" (2). British economist Fine commented that-innovation in the analysis of consumption has mainly been based upon increasingly sophisticated technical and statistical developments but within a continuing conceptual content that is outrageously narrow. . . . [T]he social significance of consumption is acknowledged but . . . it is insufficiently developed in relation to production. Accordingly, whether for orthodox economics or political economy, innovation in the analysis of consumption remains limited.
53. In fact, analysis of consumption by neoclassical economists is so underdeveloped that they are unable and unwilling to identify wasteful private consumption, much less construct a taxonomy of waste or policies of waste avoidance. The literature of the economics profession has many studies which show that waste is both deplorable and avoidable in production, exchange, and distribution, but waste in consumption is rarely mentioned.
54. Campbell, "Veblen's Theory of Conspicuous Consumption: A Critical Appraisal," 78.
55. Ibid., Campbell, "Veblen's Theory of Conspicuous Consumption: A Critical Appraisal," 80.
56. For analysis of the convergence of Veblen and Dewey, see Rick Tilman, Thorstein Veblen, John Dewey, C. Wright Mills, and the Generic Ends of Life (Lanham: Rowman &. Littlefield, 2004, chap. 8).
57. Two of the most often quoted and cited commentaries which are intended to be refinements of Veblen's theory of consumption are Harvey Leibenstein, "Bandwagon, Snob, and Veblen Effects in the Theory of Consumer's Demand," Quarterly Journal of Economics 64 (May 1950): 183-207,
58. and Joseph Weiss and Robert L. Steiner, "Veblen Revised in the Light of Counter-Snobbery," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 9 (March 1951): 263-268. More recently, cf. the already-mentioned Mason, Conspicuous Consumption: A Study of Exceptional Consumer Behavior (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981).
59. Campbell, The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism, 58.
60. See footnote 9 for a citation of this literature.
61. Importantly, Campbell himself commented on what might be done to remedy the difficulties in defining and testing Veblen 1. He wrote-
62. If, for example, individuals are considered to be unaware of their own motives and intentions what data would be required in order to conclude that they are conspicuously consuming it? If, on the other hand this form of conduct is deemed to be the product of conscious motives or intentions which, of the several possibilities discussed, warrant including under this designation? This latter difficulty is clearly not insoluble and once a clear conception of the subjective nature of the "act of conspicuous consumption" has been determined, it ought to be possible through careful and sensitive interviewing to establish the context and extent of its occurrence in reality. ("Veblen's Theory of Conspicuous Consumption: A Critical Appraisal," 80).
63. In two of his most recent publications, Campbell has appeared to be edging in these directions, although he has failed to delineate any specific political or moral anchorage for his position(s). See "The Craft Consumer Culture Craft and Consumption in a Postmodern Society," Journal of Consumer Culture 5, no. 1 (2005): 23-42,
64. and "I Shop Therefore I Know That I Am: The Metaphysical Basis of Modern Consumerism" in Karen M. Ekstrom and Helene Brembeck, Elusive Consumption (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2004, 27-43).