Shareholder capitalism stripped luxury goods of cultural specificity to universalize taste

Evidence

This shift ultimately demonstrated how shareholder capitalism changes the artifacts that make up our world. To meet the demands of global markets, luxury goods needed to be stripped of their cultural specificity. Taste, after all, was particular; money was universal. The result was a homogenization of style under the omnivore monoculture, in which numerical aspiration, rather than tradition, defined fashion. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 779

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘taste is particular, money is universal’ line mirrors the Frankfurt-trained analysis of culture flattened by capital; connects to earlier readings on commodified culture. — connects to: Wealth undermines taste as a status signal because purchasable tastes can be faked — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 267
• QUESTION: Worth testing whether ‘numerical aspiration’ fully replaces status signaling, or whether Marx overstates the erasure of particularism.