The 21st Century Silver Spoon

By ELIZABETH CURRID-HALKETT
In 1899, the sociologist Thorstein Veblen scathingly critiqued what he called the conspicuous
consumption of Americas upper class. The rich were so obsessed with their social status, he
wrote, that they would go to gratuitous lengths to signal it. His famous example was silver
flatware: handcrafted silver spoons, though no more serviceable than and hardly
distinguishable from aluminum ones, conferred high social rank and signaled membership in
what he called the leisure class.
A silver spoon is no longer a mark of elite status. Take the nations top 10 percent of households.
The top 1 percent those making more than $394,000 annually are todays version of
Veblens leisure class in terms of wealth, but they are not the biggest buyers of silver flatware.
Instead, households in the rest of this high-earning cohort those making between $114,000
and just under $394,000 take the silver prize.

Jonathan Alcorn/Bloomberg, via Getty Images While the nearwealthy obsess over luxury brands, the top 1 percent prefer luxury services, like private-jet
rentals.
Many of the consumption habits of this aspirational class, as I call it, the people who want to
join the top 1 percent, or who may appear to be in it already, better conform to Veblens idea of
conspicuous consumption. They outspend everybody else by big margins on fresh flowers and
plants, bottled water, crystal glassware, gigantic refrigerators and the latest oversize sport utility
vehicle.
By contrast, while overall household expenditures of the top 1 percent are just over 1.5 times
more than the rest of the top 10 percent, they spend significantly more on experience-based
luxuries. In 2011, for example, the top 1 percent spent three times as much as the aspirational

class on gardening and lawn services, babysitting and nannies, and exclusive credit cards than
the rest of the top 10 percent.
To get at these changing consumption trends, my doctoral student Hyojung Lee and I have been
analyzing the Consumer Expenditure Survey, a data set issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Using data from 2010 and 2011, we have been looking for macro patterns in American
consumption habits across cities, income groups and race. What results is a surprising view of
how wealth is spent in America today.
Signaling social status through consumption is far more challenging today than during Veblens
time. Economic growth since the Industrial Revolution has created a large middle class and made
the trappings of the moneyed affordable to many more people. Henry Ford gave us the Model T.
Levittown made the suburban house the embodiment of the American dream.
More recently, the rise of fast fashion H & M, Forever 21, Armani Exchange has made
runway looks available for $30 rather than $3,000. Knockoffs are so credible it may seem almost
foolish to buy the real thing; fake fashion culture has made clothes an unreliable indicator of
social class.
In response, the top 1 percent seek to impress more through subtlety than ostentation. Clothing
with megaphone labels is shunned. Bottega Veneta handbags and wallets, which sport no label,
are prized for their leather weave. Bespoke suits from Londons Savile Row signal wealth only to
those who know that the sleeves have working buttonholes rather than buttons sewn on.
Not all of their purchases are expensive, either. While the price of Ballet Slippers, the default nail
polish of many wealthy women, is far from prohibitive, one must first buy access to the
information that tells you to wear it, and how.
For the top 1 percent, conspicuous consumption is no longer about Cristal and Maybachs. Its
about experience-based luxuries.
Of course, when it comes to luxuries that cant be faked, the top 1 percent are fervent spenders.
Compared with the rest of the top 10 percent, they spend twice as much on college tuitions, three
times as much on private elementary and high school tuitions and three times as much on
tutoring to get their children into elite institutions. They spend almost four times more on
political and charitable contributions.
Veblen would recognize a profound difference between his leisure class and todays top 1
percent. In his time, conspicuous consumption was largely frivolous. Buying silver spoons did
not change a persons life prospects; it only signaled high social rank. A university degree,
another marker of social standing, was possible only for those with plenty of leisure time.
The conspicuous spending of todays top 1 percent, by contrast, is purposeful. It affects ones life
chances. Most wealthy people work long hours, and the goal of much of their spending is to save
time or make more money.

They spend heavily on education to ensure their children will have a sizable advantage in the
future job market. A degree from an elite university, rather than connoting leisure time, is seen as
an important career step.
And they spend to secure more of what Veblens elite already had leisure. Nannies, gardeners,
housekeepers and first-class nonstop airline tickets are the means.
The consumption habits of the top 1 percent will shape future politics because their children will
be the ones with political and economic power. This new elite spending is an investment in their
classs future, signaling the perpetuation of todays divide between the nations top earners and
everyone else. And theres nothing a Louis Vuitton bag, a tiny Chihuahua or a silver spoon can
do to change that.

Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, an associate professor at the University of Southern Californias Price

School of Public Policy, is writing a book about Thorstein Veblen and consumption in the 21st
century.