Chapter 5: The Pecuniary Standard of Living
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For the great
body of the people in any modern community, the proximate ground of
expenditure in excess of what is required for physical comfort is
not a conscious effort to excel in the expensiveness of their
visible consumption, so much as it is a desire to live up to the
conventional standard of decency in the amount and grade of goods
consumed. This desire is not guided by a rigidly invariable
standard, which must be lived up to, and beyond which there is no
incentive to go. The standard is flexible; and especially it is
indefinitely extensible, if only time is allowed for habituation to
any increase in pecuniary ability and for acquiring facility in the
new and larger scale of expenditure that follows such an increase.
It is much more difficult to recede from a scale of expenditure once
adopted than it is to extend the accustomed scale in response to an
accession of wealth. Many items of customary expenditure prove on
analysis to be almost purely wasteful, and they are therefore
honorific only, but after they have once been incorporated into the
scale of decent consumption, and so have become an integral part of
one's scheme of life, it is quite as hard to give up these as it is
to give up many items that conduce directly to one's physicaL
comfort, or even that may be necessary to life and health. That is
to say, the conspicuously wasteful honorific expenditure that
confers spiritual well-being may become more indispensable than much
of that expenditure which ministers to the "lower" wants of physical
well-being or sustenance only. It is notoriously just as difficult
to recede from a "high" standard of living as it is to lower a
standard which is already relatively low; although in the former
case the difficulty is a moral one, while in the latter it may
involve a material deduction from the physical comforts of life.
But while retrogression is difficult, a fresh advance in conspicuous
expenditure is relatively easy; indeed, it takes place almost as a
matter of course. In the rare cases where it occurs, a failure to
increase one's visible consumption when the means for an increase
are at hand is felt in popular apprehension to call for explanation,
and unworthy motives of miserliness are imputed to those who fall
short in this respect. A prompt response to the stimulus, on the
other hand, is accepted as the normal effect. This suggests that the
standard of expenditure which commonly guides our efforts is not the
average, ordinary expenditure already achieved; it is an ideal of
consumption that lies just beyond our reach, or to reach which
requires some strain. The motive is emulation -- the stimulus of an
invidious comparison which prompts us to outdo those with whom we
are in the habit of classing ourselves. Substantially the same
proposition is expressed in the commonplace remark that each class
envies and emulates the class next above it in the social scale,
while it rarely compares itself with those below or with those who
are considerably in advance. That is to say, in other words, our
standard of decency in expenditure, as in other ends of emulation,
is set by the usage of those next above us in reputability; until,
in this way, especially in any community where class distinctions
are somewhat vague, all canons of reputability and decency, and all
standards of consumption, are traced back by insensible gradations
to the usages and habits of thought of the highest social and
pecuniary class -- the wealthy leisure class.
It is for this class to determine, in general outline, what scheme
of Life the community shall accept as decent or honorific; and it is
their office by precept and example to set forth this scheme of
social salvation in its highest, ideal form. But the higher leisure
class can exercise this quasi-sacerdotal office only under certain
material limitations. The class cannot at discretion effect a sudden
revolution or reversal of the popular habits of thought with respect
to any of these ceremonial requirements. It takes time for any
change to permeate the mass and change the habitual attitude of the
people; and especially it takes time to change the habits of those
classes that are socially more remote from the radiant body. The
process is slower where the mobility of the population is less or
where the intervals between the several classes are wider and more
abrupt. But if time be allowed, the scope of the discretion of the
leisure class as regards questions of form and detail in the
community's scheme of life is large; while as regards the
substantial principles of reputability, the changes which it can
effect lie within a narrow margin of tolerance. Its example and
precept carries the force of prescription for all classes below it;
but in working out the precepts which are handed down as governing
the form and method of reputability -- in shaping the usages and the
spiritual attitude of the lower classes -- this authoritative
prescription constantly works under the selective guidance of the
canon of conspicuous waste, tempered in varying degree by the
instinct of workmanship. To those norms is to be added another broad
principle of human nature -- the predatory animus -- which in point
of generality and of psychological content lies between the two just
named. The effect of the latter in shaping the accepted scheme of
life is yet to be discussed. The canon of reputability, then, must
adapt itself to the economic circumstances, the traditions, and the
degree of spiritual maturity of the particular class whose scheme of
life it is to regulate. It is especially to be noted that however
high its authority and however true to the fundamental requirements
of reputability it may have been at its inception, a specific formal
observance can under no circumstances maintain itself in force if
with the lapse of time or on its transmission to a lower pecuniary
class it is found to run counter to the ultimate ground of decency
among civilized peoples, namely, serviceability for the purpose of
an invidious comparison in pecuniary success.
It is evident that these canons of expenditure have much to say in
determining the standard of living for any community and for any
class. It is no less evident that the standard of living which
prevails at any time or at any given social altitude will in its
turn have much to say as to the forms which honorific expenditure
will take, and as to the degree to which this "higher" need will
dominate a people's consumption. In this respect the control exerted
by the accepted standard of living is chiefly of a negative
character; it acts almost solely to prevent recession from a scale
of conspicuous expenditure that has once become habitual.
A standard of living is of the nature of habit. It is an habitual
scale and method of responding to given stimuli. The difficulty in
the way of receding from an accustomed standard is the difficulty of
breaking a habit that has once been formed. The relative facility
with which an advance in the standard is made means that the life
process is a process of unfolding activity and that it will readily
unfold in a new direction whenever and wherever the resistance to
self-expression decreases. But when the habit of expression along
such a given line of low resistance has once been formed, the
discharge will seek the accustomed outlet even after a change has
taken place in the environment whereby the external resistance has
appreciably risen. That heightened facility of expression in a given
direction which is called habit may offset a considerable increase
in the resistance offered by external circumstances to the unfolding
of life in the given direction. As between the various habits, or
habitual modes and directions of expression, which go to make up an
individual's standard of living, there is an appreciable difference
in point of persistence under counteracting circumstances and in
point of the degree of imperativeness with which the discharge seeks
a given direction.
That is to say, in the language of current economic theory, while
men are reluctant to retrench their expenditures in any direction,
they are more reluctant to retrench in some directions than in
others; so that while any accustomed consumption is reluctantly
given up, there are certain lines of consumption which are given up
with relatively extreme reluctance. The articles or forms of
consumption to which the consumer clings with the greatest tenacity
are commonly the so-called necessaries of life, or the subsistence
minimum. The subsistence minimum is of course not a rigidly
determined allowance of goods, definite and invariable in kind and
quantity; but for the purpose in hand it may be taken to comprise a
certain, more or less definite, aggregate of consumption required
for the maintenance of life. This minimum, it may be assumed, is
ordinarily given up last in case of a progressive retrenchment of
expenditure. That is to say, in a general way, the most ancient and
ingrained of the habits which govern the individual's life -- those
habits that touch his existence as an organism -- are the most
persistent and imperative. Beyond these come the higher wants --
later-formed habits of the individual or the race -- in a somewhat
irregular and by no means invariable gradation. Some of these higher
wants, as for instance the habitual use of certain stimulants, or
the need of salvation (in the eschatological sense), or of good
repute, may in some cases take precedence of the lower or more
elementary wants. In general, the longer the habituation, the more
unbroken the habit, and the more nearly it coincides with previous
habitual forms of the life process, the more persistently will the
given habit assert itself. The habit will be stronger if the
particular traits of human nature which its action involves, or the
particular aptitudes that find exercise in it, are traits or
aptitudes that are already largely and profoundly concerned in the
life process or that are intimately bound up with the life history
of the particular racial stock.
The varying degrees of ease with which different habits are formed
by different persons, as well as the varying degrees of reluctance
with which different habits are given up, goes to say that the
formation of specific habits is not a matter of length of
habituation simply. Inherited aptitudes and traits of temperament
count for quite as much as length of habituation in deciding what
range of habits will come to dominate any individual's scheme of
life. And the prevalent type of transmitted aptitudes, or in other
words the type of temperament belonging to the dominant ethnic
element in any community, will go far to decide what will be the
scope and form of expression of the community's habitual life
process. How greatly the transmitted idiosyncrasies of aptitude may
count in the way of a rapid and definitive formation of habit in
individuals is illustrated by the extreme facility with which an
all-dominating habit of alcoholism is sometimes formed; or in the
similar facility and the similarly inevitable formation of a habit
of devout observances in the case of persons gifted with a special
aptituDe in that direction. Much the same meaning attaches to that
peculiar facility of habituation to a specific human environment
that is called romantic love.
Men differ in respect of transmitted aptitudes, or in respect of the
relative facility with which they unfold their life activity in
particular directions; and the habits which coincide with or proceed
upon a relatively strong specific aptitude or a relatively great
specific facility of expression become of great consequence to the
man's well-being. The part played by this element of aptitude in
determining the relative tenacity of the several habits which
constitute the standard of living goes to explain the extreme
reluctance with which men give up any habitual expenditure in the
way of conspicuous consumption. The aptitudes or propensities to
which a habit of this kind is to be referred as its ground are those
aptitudes whose exercise is comprised in emulation; and the
propensity for emulation -- for invidious comparison -- is of
ancient growth and is a pervading trait of human nature. It is
easily called into vigorous activity in any new form, and it asserts
itself with great insistence under any form under which it has once
found habitual expression. When the individual has once formed the
habit of seeking expression in a given line of honorific expenditure
-- when a given set of stimuli have come to be habitually responded
to in activity of a given kind and direction under the guidance of
these alert and deep-reaching propensities of emulation -- it is
with extreme reluctance that such an habitual expenditure is given
up. And on the other hand, whenever an accession of pecuniary
strength puts the individual in a position to unfold his life
process in larger scope and with additional reach, the ancient
propensities of the race will assert themselves in determining the
direction which the new unfolding of life is to take. And those
propensities which are already actively in the field under some
related form of expression, which are aided by the pointed
suggestions afforded by a current accredited scheme of life, and for
the exercise of which the material means and opportunities are
readily available -- these will especially have much to say in
shaping the form and direction in which the new accession to the
individual's aggregate force will assert itself. That is to say, in
concrete terms, in any community where conspicuous consumption is an
element of the scheme of life, an increase in an individual's
ability to pay is likely to take the form of an expenditure for some
accredited line of conspicuous consumption.
With the exception of the instinct of self-preservation, the
propensity for emulation is probably the strongest and most alert
and persistent of the economic motives proper. In an industrial
community this propensity for emulation expresses itself in
pecuniary emulation; and this, so far as regards the Western
civilized communities of the present, is virtually equivalent to
saying that it expresses itself in some form of conspicuous waste.
The need of conspicuous waste, therefore, stands ready to absorb any
increase in the community's industrial efficiency or output of
goods, after the most elementary physical wants have been provided
for. Where this result does not follow, under modern conditions, the
reason for the discrepancy is commonly to be sought in a rate of
increase in the individual's wealth too rapid for the habit of
expenditure to keep abreast of it; or it may be that the individual
in question defers the conspicuous consumption of the increment to a
later date -- ordinarily with a view to heightening the spectacular
effect of the aggregate expenditure contemplated. As increased
industrial efficiency makes it possible to procure the means of
livelihood with less labor, the energies of the industrious members
of the community are bent to the compassing of a higher result in
conspicuous expenditure, rather than slackened to a more comfortable
pace. The strain is not lightened as industrial efficiency increases
and makes a lighter strain possible, but the increment of output is
turned to use to meet this want, which is indefinitely expansible,
after the manner commonly imputed in economic theory to higher or
spiritual wants. It is owing chiefly to the presence of this element
in the standard of living that J. S. Mill was able to say that
"hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet
made have lightened the day's toil of any human being." The accepted
standard of expenditure in the community or in the class to which a
person belongs largely determines what his standard of living will
be. It does this directly by commending itself to his common sense
as right and good, through his habitually contemplating it and
assimilating the scheme of life in which it belongs; but it does so
also indirectly through popular insistence on conformity to the
accepted scale of expenditure as a matter of propriety, under pain
of disesteem and ostracism. To accept and practice the standard of
living which is in vogue is both agreeable and expedient, commonly
to the point of being indispensable to personal comfort and to
success in life. The standard of living of any class, so far as
concerns the element of conspicuous waste, is commonly as high as
the earning capacity of the class will permit -- with a constant
tendency to go higher. The effect upon the serious activities of men
is therefore to direct them with great singleness of purpose to the
largest possible acquisition of wealth, and to discountenance work
that brings no pecuniary gain. At the same time the effect on
consumption is to concentrate it upon the lines which are most
patent to the observers whose good opinion is sought; while the
inclinations and aptitudes whose exercise does not involve a
honorific expenditure of time or substance tend to fall into
abeyance through disuse.
Through this discrimination in favor of visible consumption it has
come about that the domestic life of most classes is relatively
shabby, as compared with the 俢lat of that overt portion of their
life that is carried on before the eyes of observers. As a secondary
consequence of the same discrimination, people habitually screen
their private life from observation. So far as concerns that portion
of their consumption that may without blame be carried on in secret,
they withdraw from all contact with their neighbors, Hence the
exclusiveness of people, as regards their domestic life, in most of
the industrially developed communities; and hence, by remoter
derivation, the habit of privacy and reserve that is so large a
feature in the code of proprieties of the better class in all
communities. The low birthrate of the classes upon whom the
requirements of reputable expenditure fall with great urgency is
likewise traceable to the exigencies of a standard of living based
on conspicuous waste. The conspicuous consumption, and the
consequent increased expense, required in the reputable maintenance
of a child is very considerable and acts as a powerful deterrent. It
is probably the most effectual of the Malthusian prudential checks.
The effect of this factor of the standard of living, both in the way
of retrenchment in the obscurer elements of consumption that go to
physical comfort and maintenance, and also in the paucity or absence
of children, is perhaps seen at its best among the classes given to
scholarly pursuits. Because of a presumed superiority and scarcity
of the gifts and attainments that characterize their life, these
classes are by convention subsumed under a higher social grade than
their pecuniary grade should warrant. The scale of decent
expenditure in their case is pitched correspondingly high, and it
consequently leaves an exceptionally narrow margin disposable for
the other ends of life. By force of circumstances, their habitual
sense of what is good and right in these matters, as well as the
expectations of the community in the way of pecuniary decency among
the learned, are excessively high -- as measured by the prevalent
degree of opulence and earning capacity of the class, relatively to
the non-scholarly classes whose social equals they nominally are. In
any modern community where there is no priestly monopoly of these
occupations, the people of scholarly pursuits are unavoidably thrown
into contact with classes that are pecuniarily their superiors. The
high standard of pecuniary decency in force among these superior
classes is transfused among the scholarly classes with but little
mitigation of its rigor; and as a consequence there is no class of
the community that spends a larger proportion of its substance in
conspicuous waste than these.
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