I'll start discussing Geoffrey Miller's new book Spent soon. But first let me review its main predecessor: Robert Frank's book Luxury Fever, from 2000. Miller on Frank: I owe Gad Saad and Robert Frank a great debt for their groundbreaking work. … Frank's reasoning, like mine, is that many purchases function as positional goods that display one's wealth, status, or personality traits rather than yielding true happiness benefits or fitness payoffs to the purchaser. … All my arguments are highly supportive of Robert Frank's proposal for a progressive consumption tax. (p27,312)
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.
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. ;-)
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
"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."
Frank also has not even a qualitative idea of how expensive his alternative non-signalling goods are. It is far cheaper to stamp out a few hundred grills than to achieve any significant increase in lifespan, for example.
I tend to be suspicious of all kinds of anti-capitalist rhetoric. However, I can see a utilitarian argument in favor of high taxes on some forms of conspicuous consumption.
The reason people prefer wearing real rather than fake diamonds is the price differential, which makes real diamonds inaccessible to the less wealthy. It is of little importance to the owners whether most of this differential comes from taxes, De Beers policies or real production costs of the mining industry. Hence raising taxes on diamonds may increase government revenue without negatively affecting the opportunities for status signaling.
This is just prisoner's dilemma on a larger scale. If we all agree not to waste our money on status-items, we will all be better off. But if someone defects and buys that really fancy grill, then he looks really awesome compared to the rest of us. We preempt him by buying our own grills, while he at the same time is preempting our preempt and we all end up back where we were to begin with, competing over expensive status-showing items.
Psycho, I agree your test is reasonable, but Frank offered no evidence for what passes or fails such a test. You say "it certainly works" but you offer no evidence either.
Gary, the hockey example is fine too; but we need evidence on what other examples are like it.
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.
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. ;-)
"But that "inconspicuous consumption" can be made highly conspicuous-- if you blog. Tweet. Facebook."
So we need a Twitter Tax!
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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!
Frank also has not even a qualitative idea of how expensive his alternative non-signalling goods are. It is far cheaper to stamp out a few hundred grills than to achieve any significant increase in lifespan, for example.
What a dullard, Frank is.
I tend to be suspicious of all kinds of anti-capitalist rhetoric. However, I can see a utilitarian argument in favor of high taxes on some forms of conspicuous consumption.
The reason people prefer wearing real rather than fake diamonds is the price differential, which makes real diamonds inaccessible to the less wealthy. It is of little importance to the owners whether most of this differential comes from taxes, De Beers policies or real production costs of the mining industry. Hence raising taxes on diamonds may increase government revenue without negatively affecting the opportunities for status signaling.
This is just prisoner's dilemma on a larger scale. If we all agree not to waste our money on status-items, we will all be better off. But if someone defects and buys that really fancy grill, then he looks really awesome compared to the rest of us. We preempt him by buying our own grills, while he at the same time is preempting our preempt and we all end up back where we were to begin with, competing over expensive status-showing items.
Do you have any proposals on how we might gather evidence on to what extent a purchase is status-seeking rather than quality-seeking?
Psycho, I agree your test is reasonable, but Frank offered no evidence for what passes or fails such a test. You say "it certainly works" but you offer no evidence either.
Gary, the hockey example is fine too; but we need evidence on what other examples are like it.