The economic bears that character a struggle between men for the possession of goods is the result of private property, even in slightly developed form. This comes to show that man strives to better their status and life by looking to who has the better status and life, which happens to be the upper middle/upper class in society. Industrial efficiency is presently carried to such a pitch to something appreciably more than a bare livelihood to those engaged in the industrial process. Economic theory often talks about the struggle for wealth on this new industrial basis for competition for an increase of a more comfortable lifestyle. Private businesses make it more difficult to compete for higher/better wages, thus making it more difficult for people to try to make a better more comfortable living.
The end of acquisition and accumulation is normally held to be the consumption of the goods accumulated, whether it is by the owner or the household attached to him. Consumption may be conceived to serve the consumer's physical wants and comfort. The latter class of wants being served indirectly by an expenditure of goods. The possession of wealth insists on honour. In a community where nearly all goods are private property, the necessity of earning a livelihood is a powerful and ever-present incentive for the poorer members of the community. Veblen is expressing the fact that wealth equals power and if you do not have wealth you do not have honour.
Exceptions to the rule are met, especially among people with strong religious convictions. As possession of property becomes the basis of popular esteem, it also becomes a requisite to self-respect. In any community where goods are held in severalty it is necessary, in order to his own peace of mind, that an individual should possess as large a portion of goods as others with whom he is accustomed to class himself; and it is extremely gratifying to possess something more than others. As this happens though, the standards of wealth and living change, and forces individuals to keep having to upgrade and obtain more and more wealth to stay content. As long as the comparision is distinctly unfavourable to himself, the normal, average individual will live in chronic dissatisfaction with the present lot. People will always need to have more.
Under the regime of individual ownership the most available means of visibly achieving a purpose is that afforded by the acquisition and accumulation of goods. Among the motives that lead men to accumulate wealth, the primacy, both in scope and intensity, therefore, continues to belong to this motive of pecuniary emulation or in other words the jealousy of money.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
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Veblen stated, people strive to better their status, and they determine their status by comparing their material goods and property to those around them. However, private businesses make more competition which makes it more difficult to request higher wages for the individual. This is just stating that the economy theory is a contradiction, which is relating to the individual vs. society. However, what is good for the economic society is not always good economically for the individual.
ReplyDeleteJust like Steve pointed out, people measure their status by their goods and the more goods they have the more honor they have. For an example, when people get more money, they buy a bigger house. Many people do not need several bedrooms, additional space, they buy the big house as a symbol of their wealth. The house shows their wealth, therefore shows their status, power, and honor, as all four are linked. They purposely buy a bigger house in order to improve their status. This then drives the other party to work harder to obtain more goods to "keep up with the Jones".