Veblen directly addresses the basic test for what is and is not conspicuous consumption in chapter 4 when he discusses waste. Veblen writes, “The test to which all expenditure must be brought” is “whether it serves directly to enhance human life on the whole” or “whether it furthers the life process taken impersonally.” He clarifies the meaning of this test later when he writes that the test not whether a given expenditure promotes peace of mind, but whether it results in a “net gain in comfort or fullness of life.” Every expenditure is waste if it is the result of a custom “traceable to the habit of making an invidious pecuniary comparison.”

-- StephenClarke - 13 Mar 2008