Veblen and Theory of the Displaced Class

From The Leisure Class and I, by George Blecher, at Eurozine.

Recently I inherited a little pile of money. Not enough to gain me entrance into what Norwegian-American economist Thorstein Veblen once called "the leisure class," although in his day it might have sufficed. (Maybe the fact that I'm being coy about the amount I inherited already puts me into the mind-set of the leisure class, who, according to Veblen, had its origins in an aggressive, competitive warrior class. For isn't my secretiveness - in fact, everybody's secretiveness about their "worth" - a provocation, a primitive challenge calculated to make you wonder if you measure up to me?)

When I inherited the money, the first thing I felt like doing was burying it. It was my insurance against fate, and I had to make sure that no one would take it away. In a country like the U.S., where each citizen struggles along without the benefit of a safety net - and where these days everyone is burdened by credit-card debts, college loans, health insurance costs, and the loneliness of rarely seeing each other because of long hours at the office - maybe it's nothing more than sensible to bury one's nest-egg. If this money won't buy me happiness, at least it can give me some peace of mind.

But other feelings entered. Temptation. Desire. The wish for power. I felt like showing my money off, spending it on things that would prove to others how rich and strong I am. I wanted to acquire, to exercise the "predatoriness" that Veblen asserts is the main characteristic of the leisure class.

One of the things I decided to buy was a tweed jacket. Now, I have a favorite tweed jacket that I've been wearing for years, part of the uniform of Veblen's "scholarly/servant" class of which I'm undoubtedly a part. My old jacket isn't even real tweed but only a passable imitation. Now that I had the money, I wanted a real Harris tweed jacket, and not just any Harris tweed jacket but a thick one, one with more tweed in it than other tweed jackets. I wanted an ostentatious tweed jacket that would demonstrate by its utter tweediness that it was better (i.e., more expensive) than any other - and maybe suggest by its elegance that I'd ascended out of my class into a better one.

In his first and most famous book, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), Veblen skewers this thinking with deadly accuracy. He talks about the need of the leisure class to spend money in a way that "serves the purpose of a favorable invidious comparison with other consumers" - that is, to spend money in a way that makes other people feel poor. For one thing, this may mean buying items that are "hand-wrought" rather than "machine-made." Why? Because the consumer is revolted by the "common," the "machine-made" - even though the machine-made is often better made than the hand-made, and indeed the "superiority of hand-wrought goods [...] is a certain margin of crudeness." (159)(1) The reason is simple: the machine-made is cheap, the hand-made expensive, and "without reflection or analysis, we feel that what is inexpensive is unworthy." (169 ) And not only that: according to the rule of "conspicuous consumption," Veblen's most enduring concept, all of us, even if we're not members of the leisure class, emulate our superiors and spend almost to our limits, more than we need to spend, just to flex our muscles.

As I shopped for the perfect Harris tweed jacket (Veblen might say that my interest in Harris tweed as opposed to other fabrics was a manifestation of "fashion," yet another way to compete with others), I found that prices varied wildly, with custom-made jackets costing up to 15 times that of machine-made ones. At one point, I considered flying to Scotland, the home of Harris tweed, and getting a jacket made at a lower price than what it would cost in New York City. But my wish to acquire was in conflict with my instinct to protect my money, and I finally settled on a machine-made jacket. But I was ashamed! I'd been a coward, afraid to spend the money that would have made me a Master of the Universe. So after I left the store with my "cheap" jacket, I turned around, went back in and bought a second tweed jacket. And promised myself that if I ever got near Scotland, I'd have a jacket made.

Apparently one doesn't join the leisure class overnight, not even in one's head.

Ouch. I've been thinking about my own shopping habits. I should say, prejudices. Hardly a fashion plate, and not stricken by the urge to follow all that Queer Eye for the Straight Guy commands, I nevertheless am a complete snob when it comes to clothing.

Since I cannot afford to practice my snobbery as I would wish, I adhere to the 'remainders' and 'outlets' brand of consumption. Yes, I admit it. I will purchase a pair of pants because they are Italian-made. Even if they are a size too big, or small. I will not go this far with shoes, of course, but with shirts or coats, absolutely. The more obscure and European the brand, the more I am interested.

As a result, I have a closet full of odd-sized apparel: a very cool suede jacket that fits if I wear a light shirt underneath, and make sure it sits just so across my shoulders ; another suede jacket that really won't sit across my shoulders at all because truth be known it is too big on me; several pairs of pants that are just too tight, or too long, and I haven't had time to get them to the tailor, so there they sit, season in and out; one shirt rather too large and one too snug. But at the moment of purchase, the thrill of owning Two Flowers or Lorenzini is too great to deny.

I am different from the woman (horrible sexism!) who buys two sizes too small, in perpetual anticipation of that successful diet. I will admit to conspicuous consumption, but it's a very particular kind of social aggressiveness I am practicing: Displacement Consumption, Or the Angst for Faraway Place. Yes, the crudest of all consumptions, the consumption of Romance. The Romance of Someplace Else, of travel, of experience.

I buys these items from the suppressed desire to escape. Specifically, to escape to Ireland, and even more specifically, to a small white bench in a neat garden in Westmeath.

One might ask what has Westmeath to do with Romance, culture, or Europe? Please! Reserve slagging for another day.

For the past five years I have displaced my longing to return with a penchant for buying excellent but marginally fitting clothes. And I have done so to stand apart from the crowd not merely from the usual horrible shallowness, but a particularly hostile distancing from these awful, provincial, American bourgeois knuckleheads who surround me. Aaahahahaha! Amn't I sooo not like you with my $120 Barba Napoli 2ply shirt?

Of course the whole project is self-defeating. Distancing fulfills itself. I dress to be different, and then feel, well, different. Ugh! Just the physical discomfort! The worry over an inopportune bursting out of the shoulder seams of my undersized shirt as I reach incautiously for a Stella Artois beer at trendy and ohsoEuro Paragon?!

And the mango pants by Masons. . .a tad excessively successful in standing out. These are remainders for a reason. The more subdued pants I do wear cling to my thighs pleatlessly, and I celebrate (at 5' 9") that they don't 'cut me down' with that gauche American hip hop bagginess. Still, as they remain narrow to the ankle, designed for uberskinny Euroboys, and have interesting little slash pockets, I most resemble an extra on the set of Starsky and Hutch.

Viva le difference (but spare me the Derrida.)

In defense of myself, I hope the rather sad pathos of displacement comes through this behavior at least as much as the nasty awful shallowness of it all.

Salut!