Conspicuous Consumption: A Sociological Essay" (50 Characters)

The Theory of Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen

Discuss about the Social exclusion and conspicuous consumption.

The chosen topic for the paper is Conspicuous Consumption; the famous sociologist Thorstein Veblen in his book “The Theory of Leisure Class” stated that, the chief motive of certain consumers is to display their wealth and high status in the society by buying expensive commodities. These commodities are generally luxury items and they are not a part of daily necessary goods. Those who buy these expensive luxury products, they do so to invoke envy in the minds of others and increase their self-worth, prestige and to display their high income. Sociological survey has shown that the people belonging to middle class or lower classes tend to practice conspicuous consumption going beyond their financial means in order to increase their social status, this is also known as “pecuniary emulation”, the term was coined by Veblen as well.

Veblen used the term conspicuous consumption in order to describe the upper class individuals who emerged after the Technological Revolution that occurred during later part of 19th century. In his book he also mentioned the term “vicarious/conspicuous leisure” which means that the owner of a household employs people to complete tasks that are generally considered to be a waste time and the owner spends that time in leisure (Wrege & Greenwood, 2017). The standards of living increased during this period, the people belonging to the middle class began consuming goods that were beyond their financial means and had no practical use. In the 20^th as well as in the 21^st century there was an evident explosion in conspicuous consumption pattern due to the several factors lie globalization, use of advertisements in an extensive manner, new inventions, and other things (Liang, Chang & Wang, 2017). The term conspicuous consumption although initially referred to the rich people (as proposed by Veblen) but later the recent economists like Nikolai Roussanova, Kerwin Kofi Charles, and Erik Hurst found that this sort of behaviour has been predominantly seen among people belonging to lower classes. The display of wealth by the people having lower income helps them in concealing their actual social status.

The people belonging to the class of people who aspire to belong to a higher status or those who may already appear to be belonging to the higher society explain the idea of Veblen’s conspicuous consumption (Currid-Halkett, 2017). They spend beyond their means on the luxury unnecessary products like sports cars, expensive refrigerators, and crystal glass wares (Bellezza, Paharia & Keinan 2016). The show of one’s social status through consumption is even more challenging in the recent times than it was in Veblen’s time. The change in the economic scenery from the Industrial revolution has created a middle class who have money to spend to show off their wealth (Kapeller & Schütz, 2015). Recently, the luxury fashion brands like Armani, H &M, has created cheaper products. They have created high fashionable clothes and are selling them for $30 rather than $4000.  This fake fashion has made the aspirations of the middle class and the lower class rise beyond their means.

Conspicuous Consumption in Modern Times

The conspicuous consumption of the rich people in recent times are mostly motivated by their need to save time or to make more profits, they do not consume expensive things to show off rather they meet their necessities (Kastanakis & Balabanis, 2014). . They also spend a lot on the education of their children so that they may have a good employment opportunity in the future. The habits of the elite class will affect the economic scenario of the future, as the children of the current elite class will hold the financial and political power.

Advertising through various mediums like banner, T.V, radio, songs while influencing the consumption behavior has also made an impact on our thinking about the roles of males and females in the society. However, advertising and mass media is definitely more than the simple conveyance of information and especially if it is conveyed visually. It can significantly affect or influence, an individual’s perception and reinforce certain values. Consumerism and advertising have given shape to “sexism”, the term was introduced by the US American women’s movement during the 1970s. The portrayal of female figures in advertising has over the years influenced the consumer buying behavior and as a result, womenfolk have been dominated and persistently portrayed as the weaker gender. The portrayal of images of men and women in TV, newspapers and magazines has induced a well demarcated gender hierarchy (Zhao et al., 2017). Body language is one of the mediums through which advertisements have injected the stereotypical images of men and women. According to the theory of conspicuous consumerism, an individual’s consumption behavior is influenced by his class and culture (Pastore et al., 2016). The same is used to make a clear demarcation between the conventional stereotyped gender roles. In case of women, the pattern of their consumption was determined by her position in the society and household. Traditionally, a woman was allowed to consume things, which were necessary to their sustenance and would reflect class and social position of their masters. Whereas, excessive consumption of materials became the sign of class and dignity for men, noble status in society and one of the scales to measure the noble from the ignoble (Warde, 2017).This is one of the sexist aspects of a consumerist society.

Media and communication, one of the fundamental mediums of 21^st century determine consumer buying patterns and choice of lifestyle. In advertising and media, the minorities often get little or absolutely zero representation and in certain cases are presented in a stereotypical, conventional manner. According to J.A Doyle, advertisements shape perceptions in showing the male personality as unnecessarily dominant, aggressive and with such other masculine accomplishments. This is also a powerful way of selling products that can further appeal to their manliness and make them distinct and superior with an image befitting to their dominant selves. The women on the other hand are portrayed often times as the caregivers, and advertisements have evolved around ways to ensure the utmost satisfaction to the male community. This creates the power equation between the men and women, the former being abstained from images that are conventionally associated with women (Collins, Baer & Weber, 2015). It gives a very false notion of gender identity and gender roles by stereotypically associating colors, works and way of dressing with the female gender, for instance household tasks like cooking and cleaning when shown by a male portrays them as a buffoon. This is at par with the theory of conspicuous consumerism where the women, who are considered as a chattel to the men, should consume only the things that would honor her superior (Campbell, 2016). Conspicuous consumption of materials is a means of earning reputation and securing self-esteem.

Impact of Conspicuous Consumption on the Society

Media represents women as sex objects and influences them to by certain products or avail services that would sustain the sexual aggressors, men. The skilled manipulation of gender centric role is not new in the realm of advertising and media and the same has over the years promoted sexism and objectification of women (Percy, 2016).

In case of video games and toys, as Simon de Beauvoir enumerates that one is not born a woman but becomes so, the games portray a sexualized version of the female body. Though the women are invested with powers and skills like that of men, they are represented according to the conventional male fantasy. The idealization of female body is thoroughly prevalent within the world of toys and video games. They portray that a slender and accurately proportioned body is the paradigm of feminine body.

This is how the growth of beliefs and assumptions take place in the society due to advertising, media, toys and video games. The male figure is presented with the help of several stereotypical male character traits such as muscular physique, a typically aggressive male personality outnumbering the females. In the third generation consoles, the male gender is sketched and represented as the savior of their trophy wives or damsel in distress. Women were required in the games to provide the male figures a fascinating sense of victory and triumph. In this way it created biased images and as a result gender inequalities in the society, as large section of population was actually a part of the mainstream media.

Conclusion

To conclude, conspicuous consumption theory as suggested by Veblen has changed a lot since the past. Previously conspicuous consumption meant display of wealth by the rich upper class people but now the term is used to refer to the lower classes who try to buy expensive products to hide their status. It is seen as a wasteful way displayed by the consumers. Regarding the matter of display of wealth, in recent times, less is considered to be more, the real up-per class people display their wealthy in a much subtle manner. Gender bias has been an underlying truth hidden among the advertisement, and this idea has been at par with the conspicuous theory in which the women are considered to be the property of the men and they consume things according to the wealth of their masters. Although the theory still remains but it has evolved a lot and has got a different dimension of its own.

Reference

Bellezza, S., Paharia, N., & Keinan, A. (2016). Conspicuous consumption of time: When busyness and lack of leisure time become a status symbol. Journal of Consumer Research, 44(1), 118-138.

Campbell, C. (2016). Status Matters? The Contradictions Surrounding Conspicuous Consumption. Being Human in a Consumer Society, 41.

Collins, J., Baer, B., & Weber, E. J. (2015). Sexual selection, conspicuous consumption and  economic growth. Journal of Bioeconomics, 17(2), 189-206.

Currid-Halkett, E. (2017). The Sum of Small Things: A Theory of the Aspirational Class. Princeton University Press.

Kapeller, J., & Schütz, B. (2015). Conspicuous Consumption, Inequality and Debt: The Nature of Consumption?driven Profit?led Regimes. Metro economic, 66(1), 51-70.

Kastanakis, M. N., & Balabanis, G. (2014). Explaining variation in conspicuous luxury consumption: An individual differences' perspective. Journal of Business Research, 67(10), 2147-2154.

Liang, S., Chang, Y., & Wang, J. (2017). Social exclusion and conspicuous consumption: The moderating effect of power state. Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal, 45(2), 321-329.

Pastore, C. M. D. A., Nepomuceno, M. V., Stenstrom, E., & Maffezzolli, E. C. F. (2016). The Association Between Digit Ratios and Conspicuous Consumption, and the Moderating Role of Intrasexual Competition. ACR North American Advances.

Percy, L. (2016). Strategic advertising management. Oxford University Press.

Warde, A. (2017). The Development of the Sociology of Consumption. In Consumption (pp. 33-55). Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Wrege, C. D., & Greenwood, R. G. (2017). THEORY OF THE LEISURE CLASS. Reforming America: A Thematic Encyclopedia and Document Collection of the Progressive Era [2 volumes], 325.

Zhao, T., Jin, X., Xu, W., Zuo, X., & Cui, H. (2017). Mating Goals Moderate Power’s Effect on Conspicuous Consumption Among Women. Evolutionary Psychology, 15(3), 1474704917723912.