Comments on: Luxury Fever

By: justin

justin — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:34:56 +0000

Even with incentive, people will always compare themselves to other people and then prove that their x is better than the other person’s x. Or simply, that the other person doesn’t have an x, but the speaker does, which would, supposedly, put one person higher than the other on whatever subjective scale the two have. The second person might respond that they do not measure themselves along x, but that won’t stop the first person from acquiring x to impress someone else. Prestige is important, and we’ll always make excuses to be treated better/higher up than other people. As some comments have made clear, there’s always a bit of utility and a bit of show in our material goods, and we typically buy those things for both.

By: Tony

Tony — Mon, 18 May 2009 00:36:31 +0000

Hence raising taxes on diamonds may increase government revenue without negatively affecting the opportunities for status signaling.

I wonder what would happen if there was a tax on lentils. A dollar a bean. Lentil soup would cost hundreds of dollars a serving! Perhaps it would be the ultimate luxury tax.

I’m only half kidding. A tax on lentils would only create a black market.

By: Will Pearson

Will Pearson — Sun, 17 May 2009 22:06:17 +0000

“But that “inconspicuous consumption” can be made highly conspicuous– if you blog. Tweet. Facebook.”

So we need a Twitter Tax!

By: diogenese

diogenese — Sun, 17 May 2009 21:51:12 +0000

psycho — some psychologists have looked at your test, unfortuantely I don’t have a reference, but vaguely recall that there is something like a 50/50 split between the two options.

By: Phil

Phil — Sun, 17 May 2009 18:42:52 +0000

“If we all lived in smaller houses, or drove less expensive cars, we could all take more weeks of vacation each year. … Vacations offer the opportunity to see new places, visit with distant relatives and friends, take up a new sport, read books, lie on a beach, hike in the wilderness. ….”

If we all took fewer vacations, we could all live in larger houses or buy more expensive cars. … Larger houses offer the opportunity to accumulate a greater variety of goods that provide opportunities for recreation, such as pool tables and televisions. Better cars offer increased accident avoidance, and better safety in accidents that can’t be avoided. By offering more comfort, they allow people to spend more time in their cars, which provides increased opportunities to drive to visits with medium-distance family and friends, beaches, and wilderness.

By: ES

ES — Sun, 17 May 2009 17:55:30 +0000

We value expensive gewgaws because they represent tangible proof that someone, somewhere, thought we were worth something.

mariana, money is a means of coordinating arrangements that would be too complex to manage by direct barter.

By: Jason Brennan

Jason Brennan — Sun, 17 May 2009 16:57:22 +0000

If the world is ever ruled by omniscient, omnibenevolent angels, maybe I’ll go for this. Until then, I don’t trust anyone to implement this kind of policy.

By: Elf Sternberg

Elf Sternberg — Sun, 17 May 2009 16:47:27 +0000

Frank’s “inconspicuous consumption” seems to correspond to the “consumption of experience” meme that’s been circulating among the geeky cognoscenti with whom I hang out. For those of us past our 30s, our houses, however large, are full. It takes effort to clear stuff out. Far better to consume experiences than things.

But that “inconspicuous consumption” can be made highly conspicuous– if you blog. Tweet. Facebook. You can make your friends envious of your emotional fulfillment puttering in your garden, bicycling with the children, having an afternoon picnic, and so forth and so on. Frank’s argument fails because his distinction is wholly artificial, and doesn’t take into account alternative forms of signaling now available to anyone with a lick of literacy.

By: mariana

mariana — Sun, 17 May 2009 14:54:49 +0000

No-one knows what money is, which seems odd. We know about strange things like quarks and quasars. But not about money. Everybody claimed wisdom, starting with Economists and ending with academics. Money is ‘nothing but numbers’, a ‘measure’, a ‘means’, a ‘liberator’, ‘money is, what money does’. In fact, money can be anything we believe it to be.

Theories about money are plentiful and can fit any circumstance.They are comforting to us, but fundamentally unreliable.

By: Jaffa Cakes

Jaffa Cakes — Sun, 17 May 2009 14:25:47 +0000

“At that summer barbecue, maybe Frank would rather we all sat transfixed by his articulate lecture on the politics of status, without being distracted by the host’s shinny new grill.”

Robin, you’re NAUGHTY!