Part XIV – Unproductive Consumption

This is part of a series discussing The Theory of the Leisure Class, by Thorstein Veblen.  His fourth chapter is Conspicuous Consumption. 

In my last post I talked about Veblen’s notions of vicarious leisure.  This term applies to the upper class of servants (including wives) whose main job is to be at the ready to provide personal service to the master.  Another part of their duties is the vicarious consumption of goods:  wearing livery, consumption of food, clothing, dwelling and furniture “by the lady and the rest of the domestic establishment.”

One of the earliest rules about conspicuous consumption was about who could do it.  Initially this privilege was assigned simply on the basis of gender:  able-bodied men vs. labouring women.  Men consumed what women produced.  Women’s consumption was to enable their continued labour, not for comfort or pleasure.  Unproductive consumption was a mark of prowess and was required for human dignity; this consumption became honourable in itself, particularly in respect to more choice articles of food or adornment. 

Consumption of these special items were tabu for women, children or servile men.  When the quasi-peaceable stage is reached, the base class should consume only what may be necessary to their subsistence.   This sounds harsh, but consider the standard of living of the poor throughout most of history.  There were even laws in Elizabethan times limiting how sumptuously the working class might dress, thus ensuring that stolen clothes were useless. 

Luxuries in the way of food, drink and drugs belong to the leisure class.  The best example of this ceremonial differentiation is in the use of intoxicating beverages and narcotics.  If they were costly they were felt to be honorific and therefore the base classes, particularly the women, practiced ‘an enforced continence with respect to these stimulants’, except where they were inexpensive.  From archaic times through all the patriarchal regime it has the women’s job to prepare and present these luxuries, and the men’s job men to consume them. 

I remember hearing that among the Anazazi Indians of the southwestern US, the women were the financial managers, but the men were spiritual leaders whose duties involved retiring to a special lodging with other men to take narcotics and commune with the spirits.  On Tish Jett’s blog, she reports that in France, the man pours the wine and it is his decision when or whether a woman’s wine glass is re-filled; it is not appropriate for her to help herself.  Luxuries aside, I remember it was my mother's role to prepare food and my father's to consume it.  I never once saw him wash dishes or prepare a meal for her consumption.  I didn't think a thing of it at the time, except that I didn't want to learn to cook.

Intoxication is considered honorific, the mark of status for those able to afford the indulgence and infirmities resulting from over-indulgence considered manly attributes.  Veblen claims that even certain diseases in the early part of this stage of culture were synonymous with being ‘noble’ or ‘gentle’, though he gives no examples.  The reputability attached to expensive vices outweighs disapproval of over-indulgence by the wealthy.  Whether or not that remains true, it is within recent memory that the same indulgence amongst minors, women or the poor would be heartily disapproved.  Veblen observes that women still (in 1899) practiced traditional continence in respect of stimulants and that this convention was strongest where the patriarchal tradition continued.  The consumption of luxuries is for the pleasure of the consumer and is a mark of the master.  Any such consumption by others can take place only on the basis of sufferance. 

In the next post, we'll talk about the purpose of parties.