Luxury Fever: Why Money Fails to Satisfy In An Era of ExcessSimon and Schuster, 2001 M04 2 - 336 pages A new luxury fever has America in its grip. Independent of stock prices, recessions, and inflation rates, the past two decades have witnessed a spectacular and uninterrupted rise in luxury consumption. Ordinary, functional goods are no longer acceptable. Our cars have gotten larger, heavier, and far more expensive. Mansions larger than 30,000 square feet no longer seem extravagant. Wristwatches for the super-rich cost tens of thousands of dollars. We are living in an era of excess. Consider:
Robert Frank caused a national debate in 1995 when he and co-author Philip Cook described the poisonous spread of "winner-take-all" markets. Now he takes a thought-provoking look at the flip side of spreading inequality: as the super-rich set the pace, everyone else spends furiously in a competitive echo of wastefulness. The costs are enormous: We spend more time at work, leaving less time for family and friends, less time for exercise. Most of us have been forced to save less and spend and borrow much more. The annual rate at which American families file for personal bankruptcy has grown to one in seventy. Budgetary pressures have reduced our willingness to fund even essential public services: Our food and water are increasingly contaminated. Potholes proliferate, and traffic delays double every ten years. Frank offers the first comprehensive and accessible summary of scientific evidence that our spending choices are not making us as happy and healthy as they could. Furthermore, he argues that human frailty is not at fault. The good news is that we can do something about it. We can make it harder for the super-rich to overspend, and capture our own competitive energy for the public good. Luxury Fever boldly offers a way to curb the excess and restore the true value of money. |
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adapt American amount average behavior better cars changes chapter choice competition concerns about relative conspicuous consumption consumers cost costly Daniel Kahneman David Miliband decades decisions Diener drug earn economic growth economists Ed Diener effect environmental evidence example experience fact families Ferrari 456 growing happy higher taxes human Ibid important incentives inconspicuous increase individual inequality investment larger less levels living loss aversion luxury tax males measure million nomic Patek Philippe per-capita percent person pollution Porsche premium problem programs progressive consumption tax progressive tax Psychology reason recent reduce relative income relative position reported result satisfaction savings rate serotonin simply smaller houses society someone spending patterns standard stress subjective well-being sumption sumptuary laws tax rates things tion today’s top earners trickle-down trickle-down economics typically United vacation voluntary simplicity Wall Street Journal whereas winner-take-all workers York
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Page 172 - ... intends only his own security ; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain ; and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.
Page 122 - A house may be large or small; as long as the surrounding houses are equally small it satisfies all social demands for a dwelling. But let a palace arise beside the little house, and it shrinks from a little house to a hut.
Page 72 - Taken all together, how would you say things are these days — would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?
Page 66 - ... them?) A second reason for not plugging in is that we want to be a certain way, to be a certain sort of person. Someone floating in a tank is an indeterminate blob. There is no answer to the question of what a person is like who has long been in the tank. Is he courageous, kind, intelligent, witty, loving? It's not merely that it's difficult to tell; there's no way he is. Plugging into the machine is a kind of suicide. It will seem to some, trapped...
Page 201 - It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expence, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries.
Page 14 - Since the consumption of these more excellent goods is an evidence of wealth, it becomes honorific; and conversely, the failure to consume in due quantity and quality becomes a mark of inferiority and demerit.
Page 65 - Suppose there were an experience machine that would give you any experience you desired. Superduper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain.
Page 72 - One of the central findings in the large scientific literature on subjective well-being is that once income levels surpass a minimal absolute threshold, average satisfaction levels within a given country tend to be highly stable over time, even in the face of significant economic growth.
Page 73 - What is the smallest amount of money a family of four needs to get along in this community?
Page 74 - Wealth is not without its advantages and the case to the contrary, although it has often been made, has never proved widely persuasive.