Conspicuous Consumption

[Billy]

One possible stimulus for conspicuous consumptions is competition for mates, something akin to the birds' mating song and dance. Granted, one might think that a fat checking account and the security that comes with it would act as a more powerful aphrodisiac than a fast (and fast depreciating) car, but then many humans are not that much brighter than birds 

I believe you are right about the competition for mates - that is in our genes from the beginning of mankind. The story goes like this: females want the stronger, more virile male (providing comfort and security) so that the children she bears will have a greater chance at survival. More food and better shelter against the elements allows for stronger, healthier children.

I can see that in nature and appreciate it for what it is...

It's probably just me, but there comes a point when the consumption really is conspicuous, and it makes me nervous. Having 8 light switches in one's master bath is just too much for me and having food in the pantry that is years old and dusty because it is never seen or intended to be used just freaks me out.

I incline more towards 'mean, lean, fine machines' that are efficient, lithe and offers many ways to be useful.

Each to his own, I guess... Zen and the art of? 8)

Best,
Akaisha
Author, The Adventurer's Guide to Early Retirement

 

[Cut-Throat]

One possible stimulus for conspicuous consumptions is competition for mates, something akin to the birds' mating song and dance. Granted, one might think that a fat checking account and the security that comes with it would act as a more powerful aphrodisiac than a fast (and fast depreciating) car, but then many humans are not that much brighter than birds

I think this is a big part of it. Look at rich old buggers with young 'trophy' wives. Remember Anna Nicole Smith and her 90 year old Billionaire husband? Reminds me of the joke of the rich guy that went to his 60 year class reunion with a 25 year old wife. The other men were asking him how he snared the young woman,. He replied 'I lied about my age, I told her I was 95'

And of course you cannot 'see' the fat checking account and the security that comes with it. And most 20 year olds cannot fathom saving for retirmement. They just want to get laid. - Whatever works!

 

[flipstress]

A long time ago, I took an introductory psych class and I remember Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs from that.

The needs that you mentioned, Scrooge, are the basic biological needs and they are what we need to have for survival.  Beyond that he named other levels of needs--and I had to look these up now:  safety, love, status, and actualization.

The fat checking account would seem to fall into the safety level, and the sports car would fall into the status level.  Come to think of it, the conspicuous consumption described by Jay's posted blog seems to fall into the need for status--whether derived from external approval or one's internal measure.

We do have needs beyond our physiological needs, so the books, music, education, radio, travel, even showers are all needs we develop after we satisfy our basic survival needs.  My dream is to get beyond my needs for stuff and reach self-actualization, but it's hard to do that when one's worrying about lower-level needs.

Edited to add:  The advertisers likely work along the lines of associating their product with our need for love and status.  Maybe all of us have different levels of at which our needs are sated, so the products appeal more to those of us who have a bigger need for love and status.  In any case, it would benefit me to ask myself why I buy a certain thing--almost impossible to do for all purchases, but at least for expensive purchases.

 

[Jay_Gatsby]

And most 20 year olds cannot fathom saving for retirmement. They just want to get laid. - Whatever works!

Ain't that the truth. NTTAWWT

 

[Martha]

I think this is a big part of it. Look at rich old buggers with young 'trophy' wives. Remember Anna Nicole Smith and her 90 year old Billionaire husband? Reminds me of the joke of the rich guy that went to his 60 year class reunion with a 25 year old wife. The other men were asking him how he snared the young woman,. He replied 'I lied about my age, I told her I was 95' 

And of course you cannot 'see' the fat checking account and the security that comes with it. And most 20 year olds cannot fathom saving for retirmement. They just want to get laid. - Whatever works!

The cover story and several articles in Business Week this week are on competition. Interesting reading.

From one of the articles:

If you want to understand the urge to compete, consider the rat. Male wild rats fight each other as a matter of course. When an adult male so much as tries to enter territory already claimed by another, there is a battle royal. The losing rat dies soon after -- not from any wounds, which are usually superficial, but from sheer humiliation. Rats, in other words, are about as competitive as you can get.

Except when they don't have to be. Put a bunch of male rats in a cage with no females, give them plenty of food, and they get along like they're on some sort of male sensitivity retreat, grooming each other and curling up together.



http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_34/b3998405.htm

 

[Scrooge]

A long time ago, I took an introductory psych class and I remember Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs from that.

The needs that you mentioned, Scrooge, are the basic biological needs and they are what we need to have for survival.  Beyond that he named other levels of needs--and I had to look these up now:  safety, love, status, and actualization.

I am tempted to say that calling a "want" a "need" won't change its optional nature but upon further reflection it may be a bit more complicated than that. For example, the need for "safety" is just a way of ensuring that your basic needs that are satisfied today will still be taken care of tomorrow -- a projection of your current basic needs into the future, if you will.

"Love" is about procreation, a basic biological imperative and as close as we come to immortality. "Status" is mostly about improving your mating/procreational choices/chances, so it can be seen as an extension of the procreational imperative. "Actualization", on the other hand, is much too messy to be explained away with my reductionist brush

Edited to add:  The advertisers likely work along the lines of associating their product with our need for love and status.

Yep, much of the time it's the old "Are you telling me that you are still using that old [gadget101]?! Goodness, everybody has long upgraded to [gadget202]!" pitch.

Maybe all of us have different levels of at which our needs are sated, so the products appeal more to those of us who have a bigger need for love and status.

It also depends on who your perceived peers are and what they like. Well over 95% of all advertising doesn't appeal to me at all simply because my peer group couldn't care less about that stuff. In retrospect, it was a bit of a trap because I thought that I was immune to advertising, conspicuous consumption, etc. It turned out that I wasn't, it's just that I was buying things that I felt my peers would have approved of  

In any case, it would benefit me to ask myself why I buy a certain thing--almost impossible to do for all purchases, but at least for expensive purchases.

Once my mortality sunk in, I found it fairly easy to do a cost-benefit analysis on most (durable goods) purchases: how many years of use I will get out of them, how much they will cost to maintain, how much they will cost to dispose of, will I still be able/willing to use them once my health declines, etc.

 

[Nords]

Except when they don't have to be. Put a bunch of male rats in a cage with no females, give them plenty of food, and they get along like they're on some sort of male sensitivity retreat, grooming each other and curling up together.

Am I the only guy wondering what happened in the cage full of female rats? Why wasn't that reported on?

 

[haha]

I just brought up the book as an aside in case it might be interesting for some of us to see what people in other countries have (or had since the book was published some years ago).  It shows how adaptable we are as humans in terms of what we can survive on.  But then, my definition of a good life means more than just surviving;  my ideal would be between just surviving and heedless acquiring/consuming.

Hi Flipstress,

I got this book from my library some time ago. I found it very interesting. One thing that struck me is that the household items that many of the people from poorer nations had seemed more esthetically pleasing. I mean, pull the stuff out of an ordinary American house and it really looks crappy. A lot of particle board furniture, polyester rugs and unused sports equipment.

Maybe it is just because there was less of it, but some of the 3rd world stuff looked nicer.

Ha

 

[flipstress]

Hi again, Scrooge.

I once had a friend like you who thought all our needs stem from survival and procreation.  Perhaps it is so, that most of our needs evolved from the need for biological survival.  But here they are now with us, and to use Jay's analogy of a hole, practically, I've got to evaluate what I'm filling my "holes" with or which holes I'm trying to fill when I buy something.  Maybe something else will fill the hole more cheaply or will be a better fit and be more satisfying.

Maslow's hierarchy is just a model anyway, but it made sense to me.  What we may consider conspicuous consumption of the very rich may be associated with big high-status needs, arising from their family background and association with their reference group or peer group.  For me, coming from my background, if I became rich, I would probably not flaunt it because my need for physical security is bigger than my need for status--I'd be concerned about being a target for robbery or kidnapping. Per Martha's post, it seems that Maslow's theory might even apply rats: they have status needs--the need for respect. I didn't know rats could be humiliated and suffer and die from it!

I was mistaken in calling the stuff like books, showers, TV's, trips "needs" when they are but the things with which we try to satisfy our needs.  Our needs, our holes are always with us; they don't seem optional to me.  It's the specific stuff that could be optional; what one person thinks is necessary might be optional to me because I use other stuff to fill a similar need.  OK, enough talk about holes or the cucumber solution might be introduced into the thread.

Haha, I am putting the book in my request-list at the libe again.  That's an interesting observation; I'll see if I notice that when I read it again.

 

[Scrooge]

I once had a friend like you who thought all our needs stem from survival and procreation.  Perhaps it is so, that most of our needs evolved from the need for biological survival.  But here they are now with us

Oh, I know, I know, reductionism will only get you so far, as Marx and his disciples illustrated all too well However, evolutionary psychology and sociobiology are fun new areas which can lead to non-intuitive results, so I tend to play with them more than I probably should  8)

Maslow's hierarchy is just a model anyway

Sure, they are all models of varying degrees of usefulness. Let a hundred models bloom, to misquote another prominent Marxist! 

 

[HFWR]

Models blooming...

Now where's OAP when you need him...

I think the word conspicuous is the key part of the phrase. It impies that the consumption is a means to exhibit one's possessions...

 

[mb]

If you want to understand the urge to compete, consider the rat. Male wild rats fight each other as a matter of course. When an adult male so much as tries to enter territory already claimed by another, there is a battle royal. The losing rat dies soon after -- not from any wounds, which are usually superficial, but from sheer humiliation. Rats, in other words, are about as competitive as you can get.

Except when they don't have to be. Put a bunch of male rats in a cage with no females, give them plenty of food, and they get along like they're on some sort of male sensitivity retreat, grooming each other and curling up together.

Rats, humans, no difference as far as I can see.

 

[audreyh1]

I simply think humans have a strong hoarding instinct, and it goes way back. Hoard stuff so you can get through lean times. Hoard stuff so you can trade for other stuff.

The instinct to "forage" or "gather" is just super strong. I honestly think this is what some people are doing when they go shopping just to pass the time.

For so many millenia, humans had to deal with frequently not having enough, that surplus was the exception. Just like our bodies are wired to gain weight, we are wired to accumulate stuff.

It takes conscious decision making to override these instincts.

(Personally I think these instincts have nothing to do with competition for mates. Status - now that's all about competition for mates).

Audrey

 

[ESRBob]

Yeah, if you think about it, we all have a huge faith in the financial system to think that having a portfolio full of numbers on little pieces of paper is really the same as 'stuff'. We have transferred our need to hoard 'stuff' into this symbolic equivalent which represents 'stuff for all the years to come'.

I do it, too so I'm not saying it's wrong! Just thinking we may all be pretty much the same, only some are better with symbols and others want to have the physical goods in hand.

 

[dmpi]

Question.

Isn't all this spending what keeps the market growing, companies expanding and fueling the economy?

My big fear is when everyone has maxed out the CC's and exhausted the HELOC's what's going to happen.   

Ron

For the market to grow, we want to motivate people to work hard & spend hard. The trouble is people are only spending hard, but not working hard. Also we want people to spend mostly on stuff that adds value to the world. For example spending money on improving your house is a good thing. Because someone else will pay more for the house after you've improved it.

 

[Martha]

We have a street on the hillside of town, with nice views of lake Superior. The street is relatively new and people are building large fancy homes. It is called Exhibition drive. Some around here call it Exhibitionist drive. Maybe they can afford their fancy homes just fine. Maybe they are or maybe they are not trying to prove anything. Either way it is consumption and it is conspicious.

 

[greg]

The instinct to "forage" or "gather" is just super strong. I honestly think this is what some people are doing when they go shopping just to pass the time.

It takes conscious decision making to override these instincts.

I was grocery shopping on morning a couple years back. There was a late middle aged woman that I repeatedly ran across as I wandered the aisles. Just about every time I saw her she was staring at or holding a some expensive product. If it was ketchup, she was holding the most expensive brand. If she was perusing the cheese, it was the $5-10/lb types. I met up with her again at the checkout counter. Her basket was loaded with all the very best. She looked content, with what I supposed was a strong feeling of satisfation.

Now she may have just been getting what her husband liked and was happy to please him. I don't know for sure what was going on in her head. All I saw were her behaviors and glow.

But . . . I suspect that she had received some sort of superficial satisfaction with the entire process. That at each stop from her list to look at a selection of products, she chose the most expensive. She was trying to repeatedly give herself the greatest satisfaction thru the process selecting "the best" each time. This small satisfation was repeated over and over until she was done: one small "poof of emotional excitment" again and again.

She didn't hunt for the best deal or the best deal for the money--as I saw things. She hunted for the most expensive product.

While waiting in line at the next counter, I thought "this woman is in bondage to these repetitous buying experiences." Of course, I exaggerated it further: She spends her life in bondage to those brief, tiny experiences of shopping pleasure, those emotional lifts; its not the things she buys, its those little pleasures she sets up for her self that she has to have, that she is addicted to, not the things she buys.

 

[Cut-Throat]

god, for a minute there, I thought you were going to tell us that they named Exhibitionist drive after you!

 

[Billy]

HFWR

I think the word conspicuous is the key part of the phrase. It impies that the consumption is a means to exhibit one's possessions...

I remember taking classes in cultural anthropology in college. Seemed 'every' culture had a mid-winter celebration of some sort where the chief or head of the village would 'conspicuously consume' blankets, oil, stored food or the like by burning it or giving it away to neighboring villages, etc.  This was to show his power, his generosity and so on..

It seemed so counter intuitive, but the ceremony was to represent belief in the future - in the fact that spring (and opportunities to collect once again) would return.

I often wondered if the hyper spending of cash at Christmas/Hannukah time was similar to this - the conspicuous consumption that our society shows, believing that our ability to make $$ and pay our bills would return...

Just a thought.  I agree, 'conspicuous' is the key part of the phrase.

Akaisha
Author, The Adventurer's Guide to Early Retirement

 

[Ibid]

On collecting stuff and then downsizing:

I just spent way too much time at Michael Wolf's photography website.  I'm not sure which is more fascinating: the people who managed to fill their space up to the ceiling or the people who kept relatively little. 
For example, compare #95 and #83 to #76.

===
Photographs of residents in their flats in
Hong Kong's oldest public housing estate:
100 rooms,
each 100 square feet in size.
===
http://www.photomichaelwolf.com/100x100/

 

[greg]

god, for a minute there, I thought you were going to tell us that they named Exhibitionist drive after you!

CT:

I guess I was off-topic again . I guess what I was describing was more obsessive consumption rather than conspicuous consumption. But they're related to my mind. I have a friend who likes cars--alot. When some fancy thing drives by, his head whips round, and I watch, empathizing to a certain extent, and also enjoy the beauty of it moving past. Each of us has our own emotional experience. I don't too much care about the looks of car but I still enjoy new, good looking cars more than rattletrap junkers. I think he has an intense and lingering emotion when a beautiful car goes by; he has a far more intense experience than me. I feel and think 'nice'--and not much more about cars.

Everybody is different. My point earlier was describing how sometimes consumption can go awry. Only the experiencer of the emotion knows for sure.

But I'm sure I'd have a really intense experience if a $10/lb cheese car drove by.

 

[Cut-Throat]

Greg,

I was referring to martha's post. I thought you might be doing a little streaking in the neighborhood.

We have a street on the hillside of town, with nice views of lake Superior. The street is relatively new and people are building large fancy homes. It is called Exhibition drive. Some around here call it Exhibitionist drive. Maybe they can afford their fancy homes just fine. Maybe they are or maybe they are not trying to prove anything. Either way it is consumption and it is conspicious. Smiley

 

[Nords]

We have transferred our need to hoard 'stuff' into this symbolic equivalent which represents 'stuff for all the years to come'.
I do it, too so I'm not saying it's wrong! Just thinking we may all be pretty much the same, only some are better with symbols and others want to have the physical goods in hand.

"Virtual stuff"-- the new new thing!

Oh, wait, it's already being done...

I don't too much care about the looks of car but I still enjoy new, good looking cars more than rattletrap junkers.

I still enjoy the spectacle of a 40-year-old VW camper van blasting off from a stop light and blazing from zero to 40 in... wait a bit... almost there... here it comes... 55 seconds!

 

[greg]

Greg,

I was referring to martha's post. I thought you might be doing a little streaking in the neighborhood.

CT: I got so excited about cheese cars that I went up and bought four Parmasan wheels from the grocery store. Wanna help me build a car? We could drive around pants-less . . . umm . . . with our wives in the back and the cool breezes of the lake. We wouldn't even have to stop for snacks!

--Bad, Greg, Bad--go away now

 

[greg]

I try to follow Plato's Hierarchy as best I can. He doesn't worry about Darwinian evolution and such stuff. The formula basically goes this way:

1) The appetitive portion of our reality--1/3.
2) The spirited portion of our reality--1/3
3) The mental : portion of our reality--1/3

Each portion is different from but related to each of the others. If one is overwhelmed by the appetitve portion of one's reality, one's heart begins to be drawn toward serving that developing master; one's mind begins to serve the appetites too, working for, say, not a greater good but for the acquisition of more goodies. One can imagine the consequences of such a life.

If one is always powerfully stirred by emotions, the spirited part, then the appetites start to serve those spirits, as does the mind. One might go out shopping, for example, and not care about the product so much as the feeling its purchase brings to one's self.

So too with the mental portion if ones' own ideas and thoughts become too important and the spiritual or spirited side whithers as well as the appetitive part.

Plato sees a balance of these three elements as most important--a moderation. And the way to accomplish this is thru the secret forth element of . . . altruism and Liberal-ness (and one other thing), plus non-self interest.

A suprise for CT