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Conspicuous consumption is the spending of money on and the acquiring of luxury goods and services to publicly display economic power — of the income or of the accumulated wealth of the buyer. Sociologically, to the conspicuous consumer, such a public display of discretionary economic power is a means either of attaining or of maintaining a given social status.〔''The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought'', Third Edition, Alan Bullock, Stephen Trombley, Eds., 1993, p. 162.〕 The development of Veblen’s sociology of conspicuous consumption produced the term invidious consumption, the ostentatious consumption of goods that is meant to provoke the envy of other people; and the term conspicuous compassion, the deliberate use of charitable donations of money in order to enhance the social prestige of the donor, with a display of superior socio-economic status. ==History and evolution== In the 19th century, the term conspicuous consumption was introduced by the economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), in the book ''The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study in the Evolution of Institutions'' (1899), to describe the behavioural characteristics of the ''nouveau riche'' (new rich) social class who emerged as a result of capital accumulation during the Second Industrial Revolution (ca. 1860–1914).〔Veblen, Thorstein. (1899) ''Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study in the Evolution of Institutions''. New York: Macmillan. 400 pp., also: 1994 Dover paperback edition, ISBN 0-486-28062-4, 1994 Penguin Classics edition, ISBN 0-14-018795-2.〕 In that 19th-century social and historical context, the term “conspicuous consumption” was narrowly applied to describe the men, women, and families of the upper class who applied their great wealth as a means of publicly manifesting their social power and prestige, either real or perceived. In the 20th century, the significant improvement of the material standard of living of a society, and the consequent emergence of the middle class, broadly applied the term “conspicuous consumption” to the men, women, and households who possessed the discretionary income that allowed them to practice the patterns of economic consumption — of goods and services — which were motivated by the desire for prestige, the public display of social status, rather than by the intrinsic, practical utility of the goods and the services proper. In the 1920s, economists, such as Paul Nystrom (1878–1969), proposed that changes in the style of life, made feasible by the economics of the industrial age, had induced to the mass of society a “philosophy of futility” that would increase the consumption of goods and services as a social fashion; an activity done for its own sake. In that context, “conspicuous consumption” is discussed either as a behavioural addiction or as a narcissistic behaviour, or both, which are psychologic conditions induced by consumerism — the desire for the immediate gratification of hedonic expectations. Sociologically, conspicuous consumption was thought to comprise socio-economic behaviours practiced by rich people; yet, economic research indicated that conspicuous consumption is a socio-economic behaviour common to the poor social-classes and economic groups, and common to the societies of countries with emerging economies. That among such people, displays of wealth are used to psychologically combat the impression of poverty, usually because such men and women belong to a socio-economic class society perceives as poor.〔(Virginia Postrel, "Inconspicuous Consumption", ''The Atlantic'', July/August 2008. )〕 In ''The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy'' (1996), Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko reported that Americans with a net worth of more than one million dollars are likely to avoid conspicuous consumption. That millionaires tend to practice frugality, e.g. prefer to buy used cars with cash rather than new cars with credit, in order to avoid material depreciation and paying interest for a loan to buy a new car.〔Thomas J. Stanley, William D. Danko, , Simon and Schuster, 1998.〕 In the 21st century, there emerged the variant consumerist behaviour of conspicuous compassion, the practice of publicly donating great sums of money to charity, to enhance the social prestige of the donor. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「conspicuous consumption」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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