Veblen’s leisure class framed status as conspicuous wasteful consumption

Evidence

And in 1899, Thorstein Veblen first published his ideas about “conspicuous consumption,” which emerged from his observations of a “pecuniary emulation” that confers status among the bourgeoisie. Written at the end of the Gilded Age, Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class observed that class stratification could be understood, in part, through different attitudes toward labor and consumption. While the working class may believe in the essential dignity of manual labor, the “leisure class,” Veblen argued, invested instead in domination through useless “conquest,” meaning competitive games, hunting, war, and sport—activities dedicated to waste rather than productivity. This wasteful excess confers status through competitive esteem judged by others. — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 20

Categorization

• XREF: Veblen’s conspicuous consumption is the ancestor of influencer extravagance — rents, luxury cars, hauls — connecting the Corpocene framework to classical sociology of status. — connects to: Prestige seeking replaces genuine enjoyment in cultural consumption; Veblen held that vicarious consumption shifts from wives to the master as class rises — Brooke Erin Duffy, (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love:…, 55; The word ‘waste’ conceals an act of rendering the valuable useless — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 1196 (+1 more)