ABSTRACT
Veblen’s concept of conspicuous consumption provides a key dimension to the heterodox critique of neoclassical consumer theory. Instead of sovereign consumers deciding what is produced in the market, they are instead seen by Veblen as dependent chattels, their tastes and lifestyles aping the vast spending power of the ruling class. The purpose of this chapter is to raise some questions about the concept of conspicuous consumption from a historical perspective. As argued by John F. Henry throughout his work, and in particular in his magnum opus, The Making of Neoclassical Economics (1990), ideas must be evaluated in relation to specific social contexts. In addition, by focusing on consumption, the chapter attempts an alternative contribution to the literature on Marx and Veblen (see O’Hara 2001; Henry 2002; and other contributions in this volume), which tends to focus on Veblen’s writings on capitalist business and enterprise. There are two main lines of exploration. It will first be shown that the theory of conspicuous consumption can provide useful insights into key events in history. A notable example is the lavish lifestyle of the royal court in Versailles under France’s ancien régime, in particular that of Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette. The luxury of the royal court is shown to be in sharp contrast to the poverty and starvation of the population, an important element in the ensuing French Revolution. Second, conspicuous consumption plays a key role in examining the origin of economics as a discipline in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. On the one hand the progressive consumptionists, such as Voltaire and Hume, herald the triumph of liberal free expression over archaic Christianity; on the other hand the French physiocrats, led by Quesnay, argue that luxury consumption drains resources from productive agriculture. Conspicuous consumption serves a role in explaining the ideological ascent and demise of the lifestyles enjoyed by the French royal court. But this is all before the French Revolution. What role is there for the theory
of conspicuous consumption once the ancien régime has fallen apart? It will be argued that Veblen’s theory reaches its peak in contributing to our understanding of the French Revolution; it is a relatively weak concept in specifying what Marx called the differentia specifica of capitalism: its specific peculiarities as a mode of production.
