Ah, but people still want to be in fashion, don't they?
If you take people's wants into account, as opposed to their needs according to abstract principles, we're not yet in a post-scarcity society.
If you take people's wants into account, as opposed to their needs according to abstract principles, we're not yet in a post-scarcity society.
I hope that humans aren't intrinsically consumerist, but I honestly don't know. Does anybody know if research has been don one this topic?
"We even find that relative income is more important than absolute income in explaining individual well-being. More precisely, we find that the income relative to individuals’ own cohort working in the same occupation group and living in the same region matters for happiness" [1]
"To the conspicuous consumer, such a public display of discretionary economic power is a means of either attaining or maintaining a given social status." [2]
1. http://www.uh.edu/~cguven/papers/JonesesCahit_SEP262007.pdf
Yes I've read Veblen so I understand the theory and psychology behind these tactics that advertising exploits (especially luxury advertising), but there are plenty of people, men and women, for whom such shallow status markers have no effect.
"but there are plenty of people, men and women, for whom "
Sorry, I didn't mean to generalize all people. I should have said "a large portion of people".