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I am personally kind-of-ok with the watch purchase you describe. What I'm not ok with is the extra ~100K tacked onto the watch price by the brand going exclusiv

I am personally kind-of-ok with the watch purchase you describe. What I'm not ok with is the extra ~100K tacked onto the watch price by the brand going exclusively towards status. My problem with conspicuous consumption isn't the relative utility being bought, it's the values that it signals to waste money for the luxury of wasting it. Making it desirable as a society to set money on fire instead of using it to better your situation is the real damage.

Damogran6 6y ago
You build a widget for a buck...but you can SELL the widget for ten. Are you going to leave $9 on the table?
- leetcrew 6y ago
  to some extent, it's a "don't hate the player, hate the game" situation. I think it's actually great that we have a system where craftspeople can continue to see returns on developing their skills way past the *good enough" point. what's not so great is when the value of a thing is dominated by the logo on it rather than its design. but it's hard to point to a specific person whose fault this is. if you can 10x something's value by putting your stamp on it, why not? and if you're the watchmaker, why not let them?
- zemvpferreira 6y ago
  Sometimes I do exactly that, but leaving money on the table is a privilege of wealth and not the point. What I certainly won't do unless my family is starving is buy the widget from someone else for a buck and then use exploitative tactics to convince people to buy it from me for twenty. It's very rarely the craftsman who makes the real margin. That's left to the conglomerate who owns the brand.
  - Damogran6 6y ago
    That’s a logical fallacy, though...the guy that buys a $20M jet is employing the people that made the jet, advertised it, procured the fuel, built and maintained the airport, fabricated the raw materials that went into making it...the ‘rich guy conspicuously spending money on a jet’ is stimulating the economy in different ways.
    - throw0101a 6y ago
      You're not wrong, but there are diminishing returns. There are only so many people that can buy and maintain jets. One person buying one jet for $20M (plus operating costs), is probably a lot less money velocity that a whole bunch of folks getting $20M in (e.g.) stimulus checks and deciding to buy $20M worth of economy class airline tickets. Or put another in a different transportation sector: only so many folks that can afford Ferraris, and pay to maintain them. Whereas if money were less concentrated / more distributed, more folks could buy Fords (or Fiats). The amount of money stimulating things with 10 (or 100) Ferraris is much less than 1000 or 10'000 Ford/Fiats. More workers, more mechanics, etc. You're right in that the rich person can stimulate the economy, but would a bunch of less well-off folks spending the same quantity have a larger multiplier? I'd hazard to guess that the answer is yes, they would.
  - caseysoftware 6y ago
    > use exploitative tactics to convince people to buy it from me for twenty The article is about watches, cars, and baseball cards. As entirely optional/luxury goods, there is no "exploitation" involved. If it was about food, medicine, or other essentials, I might agree with you.
    - zemvpferreira 6y ago
      There's no coercion for sure, maybe I'm using the word "exploitative" badly. What I mean is that we've built an economic system to exploit certain flaws (vanity, need for status, etc) which we call luxury. I'm fine with building a better gadget, marketing its benefits and selling it at a profit. I'm not ok with preying on the insecurities of my clients. Which is what I think conspicuous consumption goods are 99% of the times.

Damogran6 6y ago

You build a widget for a buck...but you can SELL the widget for ten. Are you going to leave $9 on the table?

leetcrew 6y ago
to some extent, it's a "don't hate the player, hate the game" situation. I think it's actually great that we have a system where craftspeople can continue to see returns on developing their skills way past the *good enough" point. what's not so great is when the value of a thing is dominated by the logo on it rather than its design. but it's hard to point to a specific person whose fault this is. if you can 10x something's value by putting your stamp on it, why not? and if you're the watchmaker, why not let them?
zemvpferreira 6y ago
Sometimes I do exactly that, but leaving money on the table is a privilege of wealth and not the point. What I certainly won't do unless my family is starving is buy the widget from someone else for a buck and then use exploitative tactics to convince people to buy it from me for twenty. It's very rarely the craftsman who makes the real margin. That's left to the conglomerate who owns the brand.
- Damogran6 6y ago
  That’s a logical fallacy, though...the guy that buys a $20M jet is employing the people that made the jet, advertised it, procured the fuel, built and maintained the airport, fabricated the raw materials that went into making it...the ‘rich guy conspicuously spending money on a jet’ is stimulating the economy in different ways.
  - throw0101a 6y ago
    You're not wrong, but there are diminishing returns. There are only so many people that can buy and maintain jets. One person buying one jet for $20M (plus operating costs), is probably a lot less money velocity that a whole bunch of folks getting $20M in (e.g.) stimulus checks and deciding to buy $20M worth of economy class airline tickets. Or put another in a different transportation sector: only so many folks that can afford Ferraris, and pay to maintain them. Whereas if money were less concentrated / more distributed, more folks could buy Fords (or Fiats). The amount of money stimulating things with 10 (or 100) Ferraris is much less than 1000 or 10'000 Ford/Fiats. More workers, more mechanics, etc. You're right in that the rich person can stimulate the economy, but would a bunch of less well-off folks spending the same quantity have a larger multiplier? I'd hazard to guess that the answer is yes, they would.
- caseysoftware 6y ago
  > use exploitative tactics to convince people to buy it from me for twenty The article is about watches, cars, and baseball cards. As entirely optional/luxury goods, there is no "exploitation" involved. If it was about food, medicine, or other essentials, I might agree with you.
  - zemvpferreira 6y ago
    There's no coercion for sure, maybe I'm using the word "exploitative" badly. What I mean is that we've built an economic system to exploit certain flaws (vanity, need for status, etc) which we call luxury. I'm fine with building a better gadget, marketing its benefits and selling it at a profit. I'm not ok with preying on the insecurities of my clients. Which is what I think conspicuous consumption goods are 99% of the times.