No class
of society, not even the most abjectly poor, forgoes all
customary conspicuous consumption. The last items of this
category of consumption are not given up except under stress of
the direst necessity. Very much of squalor and discomfort will be
endured before the last trinket or the last pretense of pecuniary
decency is put away. There is no class and no country that has
yielded so abjectly before the pressure of physical want as to
deny themselves all gratification of this higher or spiritual
need.
From the foregoing survey of the growth of conspicuous leisure
and consumption, it appears that the utility of both alike for
the purposes of reputability lies in the element of waste that is
common to both. In the one case it is a waste of time and effort,
in the other it is a waste of goods. Both are methods of
demonstrating the possession of wealth, and the two are
conventionally accepted as equivalents. The choice between them
is a question of advertising expediency simply, except so far as
it may be affected by other standards of propriety, springing
from a different source. On grounds of expediency the preference
may be given to the one or the other at different stages of the
economic development.
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