10Veblen on the Leisure Class and Conspicuous Consumption

This research entitled “Consumerism of Leisure Class in Singapore in Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians: A Sociological Approach”. The purpose of this study is to analyze the leisure class reflected in Singapore in the novel Crazy Rich Asians. In addition, the aim of this research is to reveal the consumerism of leisure class in Crazy Rich Asians. This novel contained the aspect about the style of consumer in Singapore. This study used the mimetic approach by M.H. Abrams. The research used qualitative method to analyze the data. This study is used two main concepts of theory of leisure class by Thorstein Veblen, these are conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption. The research applied the data of Singaporeans leisure class in the book Understanding Singaporeans: Values, Lifestyle, Aspirations and Consumption Behaviours by Keng et al. This study also applied the concept of uniquely Singaporean mindset in the book entitled The Cult of the Luxury Brand: Inside Asia’s Love affair with Luxury by Chadha and Paul as a tool to analyze the consumerism of leisure class in the novel Crazy Rich Asians. In this study, the researcher found two main results. First, this study indicated conspicuous leisure as a signal of leisure class in Crazy Rich Asians based on seven leisure activities of Singaporean. They are sports, social, self-improvement, various charity, travel, home, and other activities. Second, the study discover the consumerism of leisure class in the novel Crazy Rich Asians and uniquely Singaporean mindset as a main result of consumerism of leisure class in Singapore reflected in the novel Crazy Rich Asians.

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Misdirected effort: Thorstein Veblen’s critique of advertising

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing ◽

10.1108/jhrm-01-2014-0003 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 6 (4) ◽

pp. 501-522 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Sidney Plotkin

Keyword(s):

Critical Analysis ◽

Full Range ◽

Essential Element ◽

Conspicuous Consumption ◽

Social Needs ◽

Economic Life ◽

Business Enterprise ◽

Content Type ◽

Leisure Class ◽

Final Answer

Purpose – The purpose of this essay is to argue that, for Veblen, the contribution of advertising to mature business enterprise was crucial. Although Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class is widely credited with introducing the concept of “conspicuous consumption”, that book is silent on the contribution of the sales effort – or advertising – to such consumption. One must turn to Veblen’s later writings on the business system to find an analysis of advertising within oligopoly capitalism, what Veblen called the system of “absentee ownership”. At the beginning of the twentieth century business faced looming threats of technological progress and democratic discontent. The material prospect of accelerating productivity might soon “end the struggle or lessen the strain” of economic life; democracy might insist that the industrial system serve social needs in efficient ways. To ward off such challenges, business developed a two-prong approach to perpetuate scarcity: carefully managed control of output and an increasingly insistent, rationalized and expensive sales effort. The growth of advertising reflected a systematic expenditure of energy, talent and resources on a misdirection of human effort, one whose chief effect was to prolong “the strain” of everyday life in futile pursuit of waste. Whether such irrationality could be sustained indefinitely, or whether it might finally undermine the society that propels its pursuit, is an issue that Veblen raises, but to which he refuses to give any final answer. Design/methodology/approach – The paper analyzes the full range of Veblen’s theoretical writings on consumption, technology and the sales effort. Findings – The paper insists that Veblen is the first radical political economist to provide a systematic critical analysis of advertising as an essential element of mature capitalism. Originality/value – The paper connects Veblen’s earliest thinking on “conspicuous consumption” to his mature analysis of advertising in the functioning of business enterprise. It will enrich understanding among academics and students, scholars of marketing and economic and social theorists, of Veblen’s critical analysis of the evolution of consumption, production and business enterprise.

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Pamer Kemewahan: Kajian Teori Konsumsi Thorstein Veblen

Jurnal Sosiologi USK (Media Pemikiran & Aplikasi) ◽

10.24815/jsu.v14i1.18109 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Indra Setia Bakti ◽

Anismar Anismar ◽

Khairul Amin

Keyword(s):

Leisure Time ◽

Social Impact ◽

Conspicuous Consumption ◽

Thorstein Veblen ◽

Consumption Behavior ◽

Time Consumption ◽

Leisure Class ◽

Social Actions ◽

Library Research ◽

Excessive Consumption

This article aims to discuss Thorstein Veblen's perspective about the behavior of waste or excessive consumption by the leisure class. This article uses the library research to understanding the perspective of Veblen's theory of consumption. We review Veblen's work, The Theory of the Leisure Class, as the main note complemented by relevant books and journals to support this study. The leisure class in this regard act deliberately to display their wealth. The newly rich group flaunted the luxury of their life with a motive to accommodate their desire for social respect and social status. The leisure class realizes their social actions through conspicuous leisure time consumption and conspicuous consumption of goods characterized by imitative and emulative behavior among the actors involved in it. The conspicuous consumption behavior produces élite taste which in turn has a social impact that affects the class behavior of the lower strata.AbstrakArtikel ini bertujuan untuk mendiskusikan sudut pandang Thorstein Veblen dalam melihat perilaku konsumsi berlebihan yang dilakukan oleh kelas sosial tertentu dalam masyarakat. Studi ini menggunakan metode kajian pustaka dalam memahami perspektif teori konsumsi Veblen. Data dalam artikel ini bersumber dari karya-larya Veblen sendiri, The Theory of the Leisure Class, serta buku-buku dan jurnal-jurnal yang relevan dalam mendukung artikel ini. Perilaku ini rupanya lahir dari sebuah konteks sosial dimana kelompok orang kaya baru mencoba mengakomodasi hasrat mereka akan penghargaan sosial dan status sosial. Hal ini diwujudkan melalui konsumsi waktu luang mencolok dan konsumsi barang mencolok yang ditandai dengan perilaku imitatif dan emulatif diantara aktor-aktor yang terlibat di dalamnya. Perilaku konsumsi mencolok menghasilkan selera elite yang selanjutnya meluas dan berdampak secara sosial dimana mempengaruhi perilaku kelas dari strata yang lebih rendah

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Traditional opera consumption as the new game of distinction for the Chinese middle class

International Journal of Cultural Studies ◽

10.1177/1367877918759711 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 22 (3) ◽

pp. 400-416

Author(s):

Haili Ma

Keyword(s):

Middle Class ◽

Central Bank ◽

Conspicuous Consumption ◽

Chinese Art ◽

Art World ◽

Bank Capital ◽

Chinese Opera ◽

Leisure Class ◽

Chinese Art Market ◽

Party State

Utilizing theories of Becker’s art worlds, Veblen’s conspicuous consumption and Bourdieu’s capital forms, this article critically examines the formation of a new art world of the traditional Chinese opera Kunqu, with university students turned middle class as identified consumers. It argues that the art world has been developed through the innovation of artists working within the tight ideological control of the market. Only artists who support party-state ideological evolution, allowing access to ‘central bank’ capital in the forms of university curriculum, opera house resources and land use, may continue to experiment and innovate before a new audience taste is nurtured and a new art world is developed. This article suggests that the rise of Kunqu reflects the political castration of the new millennium Chinese middle class, with their value and identity resting on a fantasized historical leisure class distinction and associated conspicuous consumption. The establishment of a new Kunqu art world exemplifies the characteristics of the Chinese art market, which is developed under party-state ‘central bank’ monopoly, for continued Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ideological evolution and legitimacy.

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An Empirical Research on Empirical Consumption: Kırklareli University Case

International Conference on Eurasian Economies 2019 ◽

10.36880/c11.02246 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Aslı Okay Toprak ◽

Zekai Özdemir

Keyword(s):

University Students ◽

Social Status ◽

Conspicuous Consumption ◽

Consumer Society ◽

Thorstein Veblen ◽

Leisure Class ◽

Goods And Services ◽

The Social ◽

Symbolic Meanings ◽

Insight Into

Consumption is defined as the use of goods and services produced in order to meet the needs and demands. However, the goods and services consumed are not only indicator of purchase power but also social status. At this point, the aim of conspicuous consumption comes to the fore. Conspicuous consumption for social status was first discussed by Thorstein Veblen in his book, The Theory of The Leisure Class, in 1899. According to Veblen, this kind of consumption is carried out in order to raise the social status by the upper social class and other classes trying to be similar to them rather than to the need. The views of Veblen are important when considered today's consumer society and constitute an important point of reference for gaining an insight into the world of over-consumption, especially for the younger generations. For this reason, in our study, we aim to conduct a questionnaire for Kırklareli University students in order to understand how the concept of conspicuous consumption has acquired dimension for university students. As a result of the study, it will be tried to determine whether the students have conspicuous consumption; which factors are affected if the students turn to conspicuous consumption and whether the students have loaded symbolic meanings to the commodities they purchased.

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Lauding the Leisure Class: Symbolic Content and Conspicuous Consumption

Consuming Symbolic Goods ◽

10.4324/9781315876658-6 ◽

2013 ◽

pp. 9-22

Keyword(s):

Conspicuous Consumption ◽

Leisure Class ◽

Symbolic Content

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Clothing consumption practice and its impact on the transformation of “public space”. Vía primavera, El Poblado, Medellín.

Proceedings 24th ISUF 2017 - City and Territory in the Globalization Age ◽

10.4995/isuf2017.2017.6081 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Natalia Uribe ◽

Diana Carolina Gutierrez

Keyword(s):

Public Space ◽

Urban Form ◽

Local Development ◽

Conspicuous Consumption ◽

Exclusion Processes ◽

Leisure Class ◽

Structure And Agency ◽

Space Organization ◽

Social Use ◽

The City

Clothing consumption practice and its impact on the transformation of “public space”. Vía primavera, El Poblado, Medellín. Diana Carolina Gutiérrez A, Natalia Uribe Lemarie1. 1Arquitecture and Design School. Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana. Circular 1 No. 70-01 Bloque 10, Medellín-Colombia E-mail: [email protected], [email protected] Telephone: +573113313512, +573002348456 Keywords (3-5): Space organization, Fashion consumption, exclusion and inclusion processes. Conference topics and scale: Urban form and social use of space Via Primavera is a fashion district in El Poblado neighborhood that has become a public referent of city life in Medellin – Colombia; a space that is shown as inclusive and accessible to all types of collectives. This paper is part of a research which purpose is to understand the connection between the public space with its moral and physical organization and the exclusion processes that the clothing conspicuous consumption generates in Via Primavera. The analysis of this connection is subjected to a mutual play between prior structure and agency and the crystallization, or not, of its existence through an interrelation. In the same way, a concern about the city models resumed in the national and local development plans, and its relevance as the ones that set the social and economic ideal of public spaces arises. And ideal that contradicts with practice, where exclusion processes through consumption practices bring a tension in what is supposed to be public; breaking with its inclusive and collective character. References Archer, M. (1988). Cultura y teoría social. (H. Pons, Trad.) Buenos Aires: Ediciones Nueva Visión. Delgado, M. (2011). El espacio público como ideología. Madrid: La Catarata Park, R. E. (1925). The City. Suggestions for Investigation of Human Behavior in the Urban Environment. En R. E. Park, E. W. Burgess, & R. D. McKenzie, The City (pág. 239). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Veblen, T. (1899 [2012]). The Theory of the Leisure Class. An Economic Study of American Institutions and a Social Critique of Conspicuous Consumption. Massachusetts: Courier Corporation.

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