¿Do you reckon you belong to the Leisure Class? ...it's my MeMe #376
Published on HivePostify by @por500bolos · Mon Sep 07 2026
[«The Leisure Class»](https://archive.org/details/theoryofleisurec00vebl/page/n5/mode/2up) https://images.hive.blog/DQmeUVwJm1NBjVf6WorUJegwKva3f5wuBb63zAEfshyEthN/VeblenThorstein.jpg
> The abjectly poor, and all those persons whose energies are entirely absorbed by the struggle for daily sustenance, are conservative because they cannot afford the effort of taking thought for the day after tomorrow; just as the highly prosperous are conservative because they have small occasion to be discontented with the situation as it stands today. «Veblen Thorstein»
https://youtu.be/GQGlIuq3SUA
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In view that today is Sunday and therefore also the weekend, it occurred to me that today you might have more free time as to consume and enjoy of some deeper, more entertaining and interesting content than the one you are usually used to consuming on Hive.
Since this dense and lengthy article that I will share with you today, it deals mostly with important issues and matters that concern and affect us all equally these days.
Because it deeply addresses extremely important topics in philosophy, psychology, sociology, technology, politics, economics, social media, futurology and above all, many current affairs. Regardless of the fact that these are concepts that originated almost two centuries ago.
So, I really hope and expect that you'll take your time and consume it all in its entirety. It doesn't matter if you don't consume it all at once on the same day. Of course, you can do it over several days. And for that, you'll only need to bookmark the link in your browser and continue consuming it and digesting it whenever you most feel like it. So let's begin!
[«Conspicuous Consumption»](https://youtu.be/WTrV9gg530I) https://youtu.be/pebiqI0tRrE
If you have already been curious, cautious and astute enough as to have watched all the videos above before continuing to read. Then let me first of all make this parenthesis for you as well.
Same like the legendary and never-ending debate about whether it was George Orwell with his novel 1984 or if it was Aldous Huxley with his novel Brave New World the author with a clearer and more accurate vision of what we are all living and experiencing today.
Let me tell you that there were also other philosophers of the time, who, while not as famous as the two previous fiction writers, these stood out primarily in the areas of economics, politics and sociology. And although they weren't as prolific or well-known as the first two, they were still significant figures in the area of predicting the future that awaited us.
And it is precisely about these other important four characters—some well-known, others less so—that I will talk next, through a brief and summarized biographies of their lives:
https://images.hive.blog/DQmZgAaDQcw722b4qJ6TU3tkCYQXsaQ47T7AKUgBy2pHJpQ/ExcuseMe.png
Thorstein Veblen, Karl Marx, Max Weber and Émile Durkheim were born into distinctly different social strata and economic environments, ranging from humble immigrant farming stock to the affluent upper-middle class.
Thorstein Veblen (Born 1857)
- Economic Status: Lower-middle-class/working-class agrarian. Veblen was born in Wisconsin to Norwegian-American immigrant parents who initially arrived with very limited funds and built a self-sufficient farm in rural Minnesota.
- Social Background: Steeped in an austere, tight-knit Norwegian-speaking immigrant community where Norwegian was his first language. His father was a skilled carpenter and respected small-farming community leader, placing emphasis on hard work rather than elite social status.
Karl Marx (Born 1818)
- Economic Status: Comfortable upper-middle-class. Marx was born in Trier, Prussia, to a family with a secure and prosperous financial standing derived from his father's legal practice and ownership of Moselle valley vineyards.
- Social Background: Culturally bourgeois and intellectual. His father, Heinrich Marx, was a secularized lawyer deeply influenced by the Enlightenment. Although both parents descended from long lines of rabbinical ancestry, his father converted to Lutheranism prior to Karl's birth to navigate Prussian anti-Jewish career restrictions.
Max Weber (Born 1864)
- Economic Status: Wealthy, high-bourgeois prosperity. Weber was born in Erfurt, Prussia, into an established, highly prosperous family enriched by generations of success in the Westphalian linen trade and manufacturing.
- Social Background: Highly cosmopolitan, elite, and politically connected. His father, Max Weber Sr., was a prominent, wealthy municipal magistrate and liberal politician who entertained leading scholars and statesmen in their household. His mother, Helene Fallenstein, came from a distinguished Huguenot background of academics and civil servants with deep-seated moral and ascetic Protestant traditions
Émile Durkheim (Born 1858)
- Economic Status: Lower-middle-class/modest means. Durkheim was born in Épinal, France, into a traditional household of very modest financial resources.
- Social Background: Deeply religious and insular traditional minority. He belonged to an unbroken, eight-generation lineage of devout Alsatian Jewish clerics; his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all rabbis, positioning Émile for a strict rabbinical education before he transitioned into secular academic life.
As I suppose you've already noticed, especially if you watched the videos before reaching this point in the article. Veblen Thorstein, Karl Marx, Max Weber and Émile Durkheim, all came from very different geographical, social, cultural, religious, economic, experiential and familial backgrounds. And that, of course, can also be clearly distinguished in their own appreciation, perception and vision of the future.
Given that both Karl Marx and Max Weber basically belonged to a high, wealthy, and privileged social class in their time, while Émile Durkheim and Veblen Thorstein belonged to a much lower, more modest and humble social class than the former two. And that despite of their many and diverse differences and affinities on the subject of the future of society, as conveyed through their multiple works, books, vision and public speeches. I am inclined to think that Veblen Thorstein's vision has been the most accurate of the four. Just as I think Huxley's was more accurate than Orwell's too.
So, in order for you to better understand my own position and why I tend to identify a bit more with the more sharp vision, eloquent discourse and rebellious spirit of Veblen Thorstein on the subject and so that you also better understand what this post is all about. I have taken the trouble to create a small website, in which I elaborate a little more on his biography in my own words, which you can find by clicking [here.](https://thorsteinveblenbio.tiiny.site)
Nonetheless, and to round out this article even further. I will also share below an excerpt from an essay with a deeper and more detailed analysis on the topic, which I am writing and developing with the auspice, support and collaboration of what has already been established for all of us as our faithful and frequent companion for years to come. ¡Enjoy!
Veblen's Conspicuous Consumption vs. Modern Social Media
https://images.hive.blog/DQmStWzsfi86MLD3fsekCCL5rssqFCJ71AAC4MDcTBUYYLU/slide1.jpg https://images.hive.blog/DQmdQSBepD3wNepiuFs6w8f8wR2541eV6tm8qqRA3ozQ6Lp/slide2.jpg https://images.hive.blog/DQmVzQiamFWDJJ4GHcvq7AmrFxGFMA2EhKg7rcqQxKMTzVm/slide3.jpg https://images.hive.blog/DQmPAMnHQxtY9JasBwZKbzSqawXiYpqTiYgbaUDVdGfQC9x/slide4.jpg https://images.hive.blog/DQmTGwVCAvM7N6u28K4Hja3P9xgs5CGDaK4LSoZRneaoKU7/slide5.jpg
A Deep Comparative Analysis
Thorstein Veblen coined "conspicuous consumption" in 1899 to describe spending on expensive goods not for their utility but to display wealth and social status. Over 125 years later, social media has not merely echoed his theory — it has weaponized, democratized, and mutated it into something Veblen could scarcely have imagined.
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1. The Core Mechanism: Same Logic, New Stage
| Dimension | Veblen's Era (1899) | Social Media Era (Today) | |---|---|---| | Stage | Physical possessions — mansions, carriages, exclusive clubs | Digital — Instagram feeds, TikTok, YouTube stories | | Audience | The neighbor, the country club peer | Billions of followers, strangers, algorithms | | Goods | Material — yachts, furs, manor houses | Material and experiential — vacations, wellness retreats, "aesthetic" lifestyles | | Currency of status | Ownership of expensive objects | Visibility of expensive objects/experiences online | | Key drive | Emulation of the class above | Emulation of the algorithmic class above |
The logic is identical: spend on the useless to prove you can afford the useless. But social media has added a transformative layer — the consumption must now be witnessed to exist. As the St. Vincent lyric cited in University of Pennsylvania research puts it: "If I can't show it, if you can't see me / What's the point of doing anything?"
This is Veblen's "conspicuousness" taken to its literal extreme. In 1899, conspicuousness meant your neighbor could happen to see your carriage. Today, conspicuousness is engineered: staged, lit, filtered, posted, and pushed by an algorithm designed to maximize exactly this kind of display.
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2. What Changed: Six Critical Mutations
① Democratization of Display
Veblen observed a leisure class — a tiny elite of inherited wealth that could afford to waste. Social media has made the performance of leisure class membership available to anyone with a phone. You no longer need a Gilded Age mansion; you need a curated Instagram grid.
- A 2024 study in Heliyon (ScienceDirect) confirmed that social media influencer following directly predicts conspicuous consumption behavior among ordinary users. - The entry barrier to displaying status has dropped to near zero — but the entry barrier to actually possessing that status remains as high as ever. This creates the central tension of digital Veblenism: the performance is democratized; the reality is not.
② The "Shoppable Life" — Frictionless Emulation
Veblen described pecuniary emulation as the desire to imitate the class just above you. Social media platforms have industrialized this emulation.
- Researchers Hund & McGuigan (UPenn) coined the term "shoppable life" — influencers market their curated lifestyles, then sell the exact components (beauty products, decor, fashion) through nearly seamless infrastructure like affiliate links and "Like-to-Know-It" systems. - One influencer told the researchers: getting free furniture from brands was exciting because "they're things I love and never could have afforded on my own." The products give influencers access to a lifestyle aspirational for them — and they pass that aspiration down to their followers. - This creates a multi-level emulation chain: brands → influencers → followers. Veblen's single-step "imitate the class above" has become a cascading pyramid of aspirational consumption, each level monetizing the one below it.
Tags: #philosophy#psychology#economy#itsmymeme#originalmeme#technology#society#lifestyle