Expenditures that seem extravagant to outsiders are necessary basics within higher status tiers

Evidence

Since status position is relative, status value is also relative. Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu writes that, for each layer of society, “What is rare and constitutes an inaccessible luxury or an absurd fantasy for those at an earlier or lower level becomes banal and common.” This plays out in the most famous passage of Tom Wolfe’s 1987 novel The Bonfire of the Vanities; the protagonist, Sherman McCoy, is “going broke on a million dollars a year” because his bond-trading income is insufficient to maintain the expectations of New York upper-crust life. To keep up with his peers, he must shell out huge sums for club dues, luxury clothing, designer furniture, tuition at top-rank private schools, and children’s birthday parties with carnival rides. Bourdieu explains predicaments like McCoy’s: “Having a million does not in itself make one able to live like a millionaire, and parvenus generally take a long time to learn that what they see as culpable prodigality is, in their new condition, expenditure of basic necessity.” — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 156

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Veblen’s conspicuous consumption and positional goods theory; echoes the ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ dynamics in my earlier notes on status. — connects to: Advancing up status tiers requires adopting each tier’s more expensive lifestyle conventions — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 157; Cheap common goods can be more essential than expensive ones — , A Year of World Stories, 13905; Status signals require costly barriers that elites can pay with ease — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 213 (+3 more)
• CANDY: Sherman McCoy going broke on a million dollars a year is a vivid, tweetable encapsulation of relative status economics.

Broader Connections

• Advancing up status tiers requires adopting each tier’s more expensive lifestyle conventions #expands (0.88) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 157
• Status symbols derive prestige from money, time, and exclusive access costs. #corroborates (0.82) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 215
• Status signals require costly barriers that elites can pay with ease #expands (0.78) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 213
• Ascribed high status lets the advantaged claim status without visible effort or symbols #complicates (0.75) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 286
• New Money universally signals status through conspicuous consumption across eras and cultures #expands (0.74) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 309
• Cheap common goods can be more essential than expensive ones #complicates (0.72) — , A Year of World Stories, 13905