Conspicuous Consumption in America Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Conspicuous Consumption in America - Essay Example As the report declares Marx’s theories of the fetishism of the commodity informs Veblen’s ideas of possessions having the capability of conferring an abstract noun upon its owner and by the middle of the twentieth century the advertising world had perfected the ability to translate this capability to consumers; at the same time the US economy began depending ever more heavily upon consumption of non-essential goods. Veblen’s â€Å"honor† eventually transformed into something else as the economic divide between rich and poor shrank alongside the growth of the American middle class. That something is called â€Å"status† and advertising works around the clock to convince consumers that status is something they can buy. Marx almost seems to be describing contemporary advertising tactics when he describes how a commodity can be fetishized. â€Å"The mystical character of commodities does not originate, therefore, in their use-value. Just as little does it proceed from the nature of the determining factors of value† This paper stresses that the major shift in the concept of conspicuous consumption from Veblen’s time to contemporary society is that when Veblen coined the term only the wealthy engaged in it; nowadays Americans situated at every point along the economic spectrum freely and willingly engage in consumption that is purely, and all too often only, conspicuous in nature. One needn’t be an economist to figure out that economic growth will be sluggish at best if the primary driving force is a low-profit endeavor.