Just a moment...
journals.sagepub.comSaved by Danielle Vermeer
Just a moment...
The displays of this “leisure class” were often attempts to outdo one another in a never-ending show of wealth, or “pecuniary emulation”; beneath this extravagance, however, lay deep anxieties about the uncertainty of their status relative to the titled, aristocratic elite.
Ashley Mears • Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit
But today, because material goods have become a noisier signal of one’s social position and economic resources, the affluent have decoupled social status from goods, and re-attached it to beliefs.
Rob Henderson • Luxury Beliefs Are Status Symbols
sari added
my roman empire is how & why people signal status:
1. Patricians
high wealth, low need for status
ex: Loro Piana
2. Parvenus
high wealth, high need
ex: Birkin lawsuit
3. Poseurs
low wealth, high need
ex: dupes, Stanleys
4. Proletarians
low wealth, low need
ex: Carhartt
1. Patricians
high wealth, low need for status
ex: Loro Piana
2. Parvenus
high wealth, high need
ex: Birkin lawsuit
3. Poseurs
low wealth, high need
ex: dupes, Stanleys
4. Proletarians
low wealth, low need
ex: Carhartt
Danielle Vermeer • Tweet
alexi gunner added
Most people, including Veblen, imagined ostentation was an inherent trait of the rich. I found, however, that it takes considerable coordinated effort to mobilize people into what looks likes the spontaneous waste of money, and the VIP nightclub has mastered it.
Ashley Mears • Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit
Given that everyone can now buy designer handbags and new cars, the rich have taken to using much more tacit signifiers of their social position.
bbc • The new, subtle ways the rich signal their wealth
Danielle Vermeer and added
But Alfani’s observation that the rich as a group have no clear social function is borne out by the fact that, in the Musk era, they have reacted to populist pressures largely by justifying their fortunes as individuals. When they maintain a combative social-media presence, fixate on meritocracy, employ idealistic language to describe for-profit en... See more
archive.ph
Thomas added
Impoverished elites could also improve their incomes by attaching themselves to the retinues of powerful magnates.
Peter Turchin, Sergey A. Nefedov • Secular Cycles
Kaustubh Sule added