Scott Alexander wrote a great piece about counter-signaling; for instance, when expensive clothes become too accessible to the middle class, the wealthy can swe

Scott Alexander wrote a great piece about counter-signaling; for instance, when expensive clothes become too accessible to the middle class, the wealthy can swerve by wearing cheap clothes as a counter-signal: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9kcTNWopvXFncXgPy/intellectual-hipsters-and-meta-contrarianism https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9kcTNWopvXFncXgPy/intellectu... Signaling comes in many forms, and not all of it is bad; arguably, signaling eco-consciousness with a Prius or a Tesla can be a net win, even if it's just a proxy for socioeconomics. Rather, I would posit that extremes of Veblen goods (where cost and/or effort are abnormally high and positive social externalities are low) are more akin to market failure, or the Dutch tulip craze.