Veblen goods are objects of conspicuous consumption, which contrary to normal goods,
appeal to buyers because of their expense and inconvenience.
“Ideological Veblen goods,” I propose, are views similarly adopted because of their broad unpopularity and utopian impracticality./1
appeal to buyers because of their expense and inconvenience.
“Ideological Veblen goods,” I propose, are views similarly adopted because of their broad unpopularity and utopian impracticality./1
Why do people adopt such views? To compete for scarce attention in rarified, ideologically semi-homogeneous environments (just as the wealthy purchase Veblen goods to compete with each other semiotically in social environments where they are overrepresented)./2
One arena where such a phenomenon used to be clear (post-Trump, who knows?) were Republican primaries, where competitors would typically try to outbid each other by proposing lower and lower taxes and eliminations of more and more federal agencies./3
An interesting thing about Trump, whose approach to conspicuous consumption of the Veblenian sort was always too gauche for the Manhattan elite, was he didn’t exactly play this game. He instead foregrounded proposals — wall, Muslim ban — that set him apart in a different way./4
They stood out from the accepted standards of discourse, but were less impractical than a flat tax or abolishing the department of education. This had a similar effect to his conspicuous consumption, which failed to ingratiate him to the wealthy but won him a popular following./5
Anyway, obviously we could find many other examples on social media today, but it’s interesting to note that Democratic primaries once functioned in the opposite way: competing to be as dull as possible, the ideological equivalent of shopping at Target. But that’s changed now./6
Addendum: a few replies have helpfully pointed me to @robkhenderson who has been doing interesting work on “luxury beliefs.” A possible difference in the approach I’m outlining is that it doesn’t depend on the adherents being monetarily wealthy, merely competing for scarce...
attention and social prestige in ideologically homogenous environments. Hence it might help explain sectarian and schismatic tendencies in certain extremist political and religious settings, for example. But this is just a rough sketch of ideas I’m trying to work out.
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