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‘Veblen’ Review: Scourge of the Elites

wsj.com

1–10 of 19 posts

Re: ‘Veblen’ Review: Scourge of the Elites

#5
Veblen's theory of conspicuous leisure is underrated compared to his more well known theory of conspicuous consumption but it's odd that this article gives the "competitive wonkery often displayed on Twitter" as a modern example rather than something more obvious such as posting pictures from exotic vacations on instagram or facebook.

Re: ‘Veblen’ Review: Scourge of the Elites

#6
Here's a thought: Open source project contributions can function as a Veblen good. Made to display or assert status and to communicate that you produce intellectual property in such bulk that you can afford to give it away.

Surely open source contributions occur for many reasons but I'm inclined that the above is an important one.

Re: ‘Veblen’ Review: Scourge of the Elites

#7
post #4
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't resolve that domain name.

You're probably using Cloudflare's DNS. https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/135222/why-does-...

Hmm. No, just my ISP's DNS resolver. I guess they don't support EDNS either...

Re: ‘Veblen’ Review: Scourge of the Elites

#9

Here's a thought: Open source project contributions can function as a Veblen good. Made to display or assert status and to communicate that you produce intellectual property in such bulk that you can afford to give it away. Surely open source contributions occur for many reasons but I'm inclined that the above is an important one.

Some people can afford to give away all of their output, so that's not a good signal.
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