Consumption: Identity, Status, and the Treadmill
In 1899, a strange, sardonic Norwegian-American economist published a book that the wealthy found insulting and everyone else found hilarious. The economist was Thorstein Veblen. The book was The Theory of the Leisure Class. And the phrase it gave us — "conspicuous consumption" — changed how we think about why people buy what they buy.
Veblen had noticed something obvious that nobody had bothered to explain. Rich people did not spend their money just to satisfy their needs. They spent it to be seen spending it. The gold watch was not a better timekeeper than the steel one — but it told the world that you could afford gold. The large house was not more comfortable per square foot than the small one — but its size announced your position. The wife who did not work was not lazy — she was a display piece, proof that her husband was wealthy enough that she did not need to.
Veblen called this "conspicuous consumption" — spending not for utility but for status. And he argued that it was not a quirk of the rich but a fundamental force in the economy. People did not just buy things because they wanted them. They bought things because of what the things said about them.
This insight, made in the Gilded Age of American excess, is even more relevant today. Because we now live in a world where consumption is not just a way to satisfy needs or display status — it is a way to construct identity itself.
Consider a young man in Lucknow. He earns twenty-five thousand rupees a month. His rent is eight thousand. His food costs six thousand. His EMI on a phone — an iPhone, purchased on credit — is three thousand. His subscription to a streaming service is five hundred. His spending on branded clothes, eating out, and grooming products takes another four thousand. He saves, on a good month, three thousand five hundred rupees.
He could have bought a phone for five thousand rupees. It would have made calls, sent messages, and browsed the internet just as well. He could eat at home every night. He could wear unbranded clothes. He could save fifteen thousand a month instead of three thousand five hundred.
But he does not. And this is not because he is foolish. It is because in the world he lives in — a world of Instagram and office hierarchies and dating apps — what he owns is who he is. The iPhone is not a phone. It is a statement. The branded shirt is not clothing. It is armor. The restaurant meal is not food. It is content.
He is not consuming goods. He is consuming identity.
Look Around You
Look at the last five things you bought that were not strict necessities — food would have been cheaper, the old one still worked, you did not actually need it. For each one, ask: did I buy this for what it does, or for what it says about me? Be honest. There is no judgment here — only observation.
Veblen's World: Spending to Show
Thorstein Veblen was born in 1857 to Norwegian immigrant farmers in Wisconsin. He never fit in anywhere — not in farming communities, not in universities, not in polite society. His marriages failed. His academic career was troubled. He was awkward, cutting, and brilliant.
But he saw what others refused to see: that economic behavior is driven not just by rational calculation but by social competition. The wealthy do not consume to satisfy their needs — their needs are satisfied many times over. They consume to display their superiority.
Veblen identified several mechanisms:
Conspicuous consumption — buying expensive things to show that you can. The diamond necklace, the luxury car, the first-class ticket.
Conspicuous leisure — spending time in ways that show you do not need to work. The aristocrat who hunts, plays cricket, and reads philosophy is demonstrating that his time is too valuable for mere labor.
Conspicuous waste — deliberately destroying or discarding things of value to show that you can afford to. The potlatch ceremonies of the Pacific Northwest, where chiefs burned blankets and broke copper plates, were extreme versions of this. The modern version: the person who buys a new phone every year and discards the old one.
"Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure." — Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class
What makes Veblen's insight devastating is not that the rich engage in conspicuous consumption. It is that everyone does. The working-class family that stretches its budget for a bigger television, the student who skips meals to afford branded sneakers, the family that goes into debt for an extravagant wedding — all of them are participating in the same status competition. They are not keeping up with the rich. They are keeping up with the Sharmas next door. And the Sharmas are keeping up with the Vermas. And the Vermas are keeping up with someone they saw on television.
This is what Veblen called "invidious comparison" — the endless, anxious measurement of your possessions against those of the people around you. It is not a rational process. It is an emotional one, driven by pride, fear, and the deep human need to belong.
The Indian Wedding: Rational or Insane?
If you want to see conspicuous consumption in its most spectacular form, attend an Indian wedding.
India spends an estimated five lakh crore rupees (roughly $60 billion) on weddings every year. This makes the Indian wedding industry one of the largest in the world — comparable to the GDP of some small countries. Families routinely spend multiples of their annual income on a single event. Some go into debt that takes years to repay. Some sell land, liquidate savings, and borrow at ruinous interest rates.
Is this insane?
The economics is more complex than it appears.
The signaling argument. A lavish wedding signals the family's economic standing to the community. In a society where social capital matters enormously — where your reputation affects your access to credit, your children's marriage prospects, and your standing in disputes — the wedding is an investment in social capital. It is not wasted money. It is reputation money.
The network argument. A wedding is one of the few occasions where a family's entire social network assembles in one place. Gifts are exchanged, debts are acknowledged, alliances are formed or reinforced. The wedding feast is a networking event — the original LinkedIn, if you will. The money spent on hosting is repaid in the form of social bonds that will generate returns for years.
The reciprocity argument. Weddings operate partly on gift economy logic. Guests bring gifts (often cash). The family hosting the wedding receives these gifts, which partially offset the cost. The gifts are recorded — meticulously — and reciprocated at future weddings. It is a rotating credit system disguised as a party.
The trap argument. And yet, many families spend far more than they can afford, not because of any rational calculation but because of social pressure — the fear of being judged, the anxiety of falling behind, the merciless comparison with the neighbor's daughter's wedding. This is Veblen's conspicuous consumption in its most destructive form — spending not for utility, not even for status, but to avoid the shame of not spending enough.
What Actually Happened
A study by the National Council of Applied Economic Research found that the average Indian wedding costs roughly twelve times the monthly household income of the families involved. For poorer families, the multiple is even higher. An analysis of rural household debt in several states found that wedding expenses were the second-largest cause of indebtedness, after agricultural costs.
The Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961 made dowry illegal, but the practice persists — and has actually expanded to communities where it was not traditionally practiced. Economists explain this by pointing to the "status goods" nature of grooms: in a competitive marriage market, families bid for desirable grooms (employed, educated, well-connected), and the bidding takes the form of dowry. Demand for desirable grooms exceeds supply, and the price rises — just as it would for any scarce commodity.
This is the market in your wedding. And it is not a pretty sight.
The Hedonic Treadmill
In the 1970s, psychologists Philip Brickman and Donald Campbell proposed a concept that should be taught in every school: the hedonic treadmill.
The idea is simple and profound. When something good happens — a raise, a new car, a bigger house — your happiness increases. For a while. Then it returns to roughly where it was before. You adapt. The new car becomes the normal car. The bigger house becomes just the house. The raise becomes the baseline. And you start wanting more.
This is the treadmill. You keep running — earning more, buying more, consuming more — but your happiness stays in roughly the same place. You are not moving forward. You are running to stay still.
The research on this is extensive and remarkably consistent. Beyond a certain level of income — enough to cover your basic needs comfortably and provide some security — additional income produces diminishing returns in happiness. The jump from poverty to sufficiency produces a huge increase in well-being. The jump from sufficiency to comfort produces a moderate one. The jump from comfort to wealth produces almost none. And the jump from wealth to greater wealth? Statistically undetectable.
THE HEDONIC TREADMILL
HAPPINESS
^
│
│ . . . . . . . . . . . . .
│ . .
│ . .
│ .
│ .
│ .
│ .
│ .
│ .
│ .
│ .
│ .
│.
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────> INCOME
Poverty Sufficiency Comfort Wealth Extreme
Wealth
The curve rises steeply at low incomes — escaping poverty
makes a huge difference to well-being.
Then it flattens. More money helps less and less.
Beyond a certain point, it is nearly flat.
The billionaire is not measurably happier than the
multimillionaire.
YET WE KEEP RUNNING.
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ Buy new car ──> Happy! ──> Adapt ──> Normal │
│ │ │ │
│ │ ┌─────────────────────────────┘ │
│ │ │ │
│ │ v │
│ │ Want better car ──> Buy ──> Happy! │
│ │ ──> Adapt ──> Normal ──> Want │
│ │ better car ──> ... │
│ │ │
│ └── THE CYCLE NEVER ENDS ────────────┘ │
│ │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Veblen explains why the treadmill runs. It is not just about the thing itself — the car, the house, the phone. It is about the comparison. You are not measuring your happiness against an absolute standard. You are measuring it against the people around you. And since they are also running on the treadmill — also earning more, also buying more — the finish line keeps moving.
A software engineer in Bangalore earning thirty lakhs a year should be objectively comfortable. And yet they feel anxious, because their colleague earns fifty lakhs. The colleague feels anxious because their friend at a startup got equity worth two crores. The friend feels anxious because their batchmate moved to San Francisco and earns in dollars. Nobody is satisfied, because satisfaction is not about what you have. It is about what you have compared to what others have.
This is the cruelest trick of consumer capitalism. It produces more goods than any system in history. It raises material living standards to heights that previous generations could not imagine. And yet it does not produce more happiness — because the system is designed to keep you wanting more. Satisfaction is the enemy of growth. A satisfied customer stops buying. A dissatisfied one keeps running on the treadmill.
How American Consumer Culture Was Made
If you think consumer culture is natural — that people have always wanted more stuff — let us look at how it was deliberately, consciously, and systematically created.
In the early twentieth century, America had a problem. Its factories were too productive. They could manufacture more goods than people wanted to buy. After World War I, and especially after World War II, the industrial capacity of the United States was enormous — and there was a genuine fear that without sufficient consumer demand, the economy would collapse back into depression.
The solution was not to produce less. It was to make people want more.
Advertising was the primary weapon. In the 1920s, advertising shifted from informational ("This soap cleans clothes") to emotional ("This soap makes you a better mother"). Advertisers learned to tap into insecurity, aspiration, and social comparison. They did not sell products. They sold feelings — youth, beauty, success, belonging.
Edward Bernays — Sigmund Freud's nephew — was the mastermind of much of this. He pioneered the use of psychology in advertising and public relations. He convinced women to smoke by framing cigarettes as "torches of freedom" — symbols of independence. He created the concept of the "engineered consensus" — shaping public desire through invisible manipulation.
Planned obsolescence was the second weapon. Products were deliberately designed to break, wear out, or become unfashionable faster than necessary — so that consumers would need to replace them. The light bulb cartel of the 1920s (the Phoebus cartel) actually reduced the lifespan of light bulbs from 2,500 hours to 1,000 hours to increase sales. Fashion cycles shortened — what was stylish this season was outdated the next. Automobiles changed their designs every year, so that last year's model looked old.
Credit was the third weapon. Before the 1920s, buying on credit was considered mildly shameful — the mark of someone who could not afford to pay. The installment plan changed this. "Buy now, pay later" made it possible to consume beyond your current income. Consumer debt — once stigmatized — became normalized, even encouraged. By the mid-twentieth century, the American economy was powered by credit- fueled consumption.
What Actually Happened
In 1929, Herbert Hoover's Committee on Recent Economic Changes wrote: "The survey has proved conclusively what has long been held theoretically to be true, that wants are almost insatiable; that one want satisfied makes way for another... By advertising and other promotional devices, by scientific fact-finding, and by the spread of education, new wants have been created faster than old wants have been satisfied."
This was not an observation. It was a program. The American economy was to be built on the deliberate creation of dissatisfaction — the systematic manufacturing of desire. And it worked spectacularly well. American consumer spending rose from roughly 60 percent of GDP in the 1940s to over 70 percent by the 2000s, making the American consumer the engine of the global economy.
When commentators say "consumer confidence drives the economy," they are describing a system where the economy depends on people continuing to want more. If people ever decided they had enough — if the treadmill stopped — the system would crash.
Advertising and Manufactured Desire
Let us pause and consider what advertising actually does. Not what advertisers say it does — "providing information," "helping consumers make choices." What it actually does.
Advertising creates dissatisfaction. That is its job. You were perfectly content with your skin until the ad told you it was too dark, too oily, too dry, too wrinkled. You were happy with your clothes until the fashion cycle told you they were last season. You did not know you needed a forty-thousand-rupee watch until the billboard showed you a man wearing one while doing something heroic.
The average person in an Indian city is exposed to hundreds of advertising messages per day — on phones, television, billboards, buses, newspapers, social media. Each message carries the same implicit argument: you are not enough. You need this product to be complete. Without it, you are lacking.
This is manufactured desire — the creation of wants that did not previously exist. Economists sometimes distinguish between "needs" (food, shelter, clothing) and "wants" (luxury goods, status items). But this distinction collapses under advertising's influence, because advertising converts wants into needs. The smartphone was a luxury in 2010. By 2020, it was a necessity — not because the technology changed, but because the social infrastructure changed. Without a smartphone, you cannot access banking, you cannot find work on apps, you cannot participate in social life. The "want" became a "need" — and a new product must be purchased to satisfy the next manufactured want.
"Advertising is the organized creation of dissatisfaction." — Attributed to various sources, precise origin unclear
India's advertising industry, worth over ninety thousand crore rupees, is built on this principle. It targets the aspirational middle class — the hundreds of millions of Indians who have moved beyond subsistence and now have some discretionary income. It sells them not products but identities: the successful professional who drives a certain car, the modern woman who uses a certain brand, the cool young person who wears a certain label.
The cruelty is that these manufactured desires disproportionately target those who can least afford them. Advertising for smartphones, branded clothing, and beauty products is heaviest in the media consumed by lower-middle-class and working-class people — precisely the demographics for whom these purchases represent the largest share of income and the greatest strain on budgets.
When Consumption Becomes Identity
In traditional societies, your identity came from your family, your community, your religion, your occupation. In consumer capitalism, your identity increasingly comes from what you consume.
You are not just a person who owns an iPhone. You are an "Apple person" — creative, premium, design-conscious. You are not just someone who drinks a certain coffee. You are a member of a global tribe of people who drink that coffee and share certain values. You are not just someone who wears a certain brand. You are expressing an identity — sporty, sophisticated, rebellious, minimalist — through your sartorial choices.
This is not accidental. Brands deliberately construct identities and invite consumers to adopt them. Nike does not sell shoes. It sells the identity of an athlete. Apple does not sell electronics. It sells the identity of a creative visionary. Starbucks does not sell coffee. It sells the identity of an educated, global, sophisticated person.
In India, the rise of consumer identity is visible in how quickly young people have adopted global brands as markers of who they are. The college student in a Zara shirt is not making a clothing choice. She is making an identity statement. The young professional with an expensive watch is not checking the time. He is signaling his trajectory.
This is what Guy Debord, the French theorist, called "the society of the spectacle" — a society where authentic life is replaced by its representation. You do not just eat a meal — you photograph it for Instagram. You do not just travel — you curate your travel for social media. Experience is consumed not for itself but for the image it projects.
"We buy things we don't need, with money we don't have, to impress people we don't like." — Attributed to various sources, popularized by Will Rogers and later Dave Ramsey
The Counter-Movements
Not everyone has accepted the gospel of more. Throughout history, and with renewed energy in recent years, counter-movements have pushed back against consumer culture.
Religious and philosophical traditions. Nearly every major religious tradition warns against the pursuit of material excess. The Buddha's middle path. The Jain principle of aparigraha (non-possessiveness). The Christian caution that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. The Islamic prohibition on israf (wastefulness). The Hindu ideal of sannyasa (renunciation). Gandhi's maxim: "The world has enough for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed."
These are not just spiritual prescriptions. They are economic philosophies — arguments that sufficiency, not maximization, should be the goal of economic life.
The minimalism movement. In the West, and increasingly in Asia, a growing number of people are deliberately choosing to own less. The "tiny house" movement, the "decluttering" phenomenon popularized by Marie Kondo, the "buy nothing" groups on social media — all represent a conscious rejection of consumer identity. The message is: you are not what you own.
The degrowth movement. A more radical challenge comes from economists and activists who argue that endless economic growth on a finite planet is not just unsustainable but insane. The degrowth movement argues for reducing consumption in wealthy countries, redistributing resources globally, and redefining prosperity in terms of well-being rather than GDP. This is not a fringe position — it is supported by serious economists and has gained traction in European policy circles.
India's own traditions. India has deep traditions of anti-consumption thought. Gandhi's spinning wheel was not just a symbol of self-reliance — it was an argument against industrial consumer culture. The Gandhian idea of swadeshi — using locally produced goods — was an economic philosophy that prioritized community self-sufficiency over consumer abundance. Vinoba Bhave's Bhoodan (land gift) movement was a rejection of the idea that land should be a commodity.
These traditions are under pressure. India's consumer market is growing at extraordinary speed, and the aspirational middle class has largely embraced the consumption model. But the counter-tradition persists — in ashrams and social movements, in the choices of individuals who decide that enough is enough, in the quiet rebellion of the person who does not upgrade their phone this year.
Think About It
Think of something you recently bought that you did not strictly need. What was your real motivation? Utility? Status? Identity? Emotional comfort? Habit?
Veblen argued that even the poor engage in conspicuous consumption. Can you see this in your community? What are the status symbols that people stretch their budgets to acquire?
If the hedonic treadmill means that more stuff does not make you happier after a point, why do we keep buying? What would it take to step off the treadmill?
Is Indian wedding spending a form of social investment or a form of collective madness? Can it be both?
Gandhi said the world has enough for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed. Is "greed" the right word? Or is the problem not individual greed but a system that manufactures desire?
The Paradox We Cannot Escape
Here is the uncomfortable truth that sits at the center of modern economics.
Economies need consumption to grow. Without people buying things, factories close, workers lose jobs, incomes fall, and the economy spirals downward. Consumer spending is 55 to 70 percent of GDP in most countries. The entire structure of modern capitalism depends on people continuing to buy more, year after year, without end.
But endless consumption on a finite planet is not sustainable. We are already consuming the equivalent of 1.7 Earths per year — meaning we are depleting natural resources faster than they regenerate. Climate change, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, pollution — all of these are, at their root, consequences of an economic system that requires infinite growth in a finite world.
This is the paradox: if we consume less, the economy crashes. If we consume more, the planet crashes. And no one — no economist, no politician, no philosopher — has a fully convincing answer to how we navigate between these two disasters.
Some argue for "green growth" — consuming differently rather than consuming less. Electric cars instead of petrol ones. Solar energy instead of coal. Recycled materials instead of virgin ones. This helps, but it does not solve the fundamental problem: the sheer volume of consumption in wealthy countries (and aspirationally in developing ones) is more than the planet can sustain, even with greener technologies.
Others argue for redistribution — consuming less in rich countries so that poor countries can consume more. This is ethically compelling but politically impossible. No government has ever won an election by telling its citizens to buy less.
The truth is that we do not yet know how to run a prosperous economy without growing consumption. This is perhaps the greatest unsolved problem in economics — greater than inflation, greater than inequality, greater than development. Because if we do not solve it, none of those other problems will matter.
THE PARADOX OF CONSUMPTION
┌──────────────────────────┐
│ ECONOMY NEEDS │
│ CONSUMPTION TO GROW │
│ │
│ Less buying = recession │
│ recession = poverty │
│ poverty = suffering │
└────────────┬─────────────┘
│
┌──────┴──────┐
│ BUT... │
└──────┬──────┘
│
┌────────────┴─────────────┐
│ PLANET CANNOT │
│ SUSTAIN MORE │
│ CONSUMPTION │
│ │
│ More buying = emissions │
│ emissions = warming │
│ warming = catastrophe │
└──────────────────────────┘
┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ How do you run an economy that │
│ needs infinite growth on a planet │
│ with finite resources? │
│ │
│ This is the question of our time. │
│ │
└──────────────────────────────────────┘
The Bigger Picture
We began with Thorstein Veblen and his sardonic observation that the wealthy spend money to be seen spending it. We have traveled through Indian weddings and American advertising, through the hedonic treadmill and the deliberate manufacture of consumer culture, through the identity politics of brands and the quiet resistance of minimalists and monks.
What have we learned?
We have learned that consumption is not just economic behavior. It is social behavior — driven by comparison, competition, and the deep human need for status and belonging. Veblen saw this in the Gilded Age. It is even more true in the age of Instagram.
We have learned that consumer culture was not inevitable. It was made — deliberately, through advertising, credit, and planned obsolescence — to solve the problem of overproduction. We were taught to want more. And we learned so well that we have forgotten we were taught.
We have learned that more stuff does not equal more happiness — beyond a certain point. The hedonic treadmill keeps us running, but we are running in place. The science is clear. The culture ignores it.
We have learned that Indian traditions — from Gandhi's spinning wheel to the Jain principle of non-possessiveness to the simple life of the ashram — offer a counter- narrative to the gospel of consumption. These are not just spiritual ideas. They are economic arguments for sufficiency over excess.
And we have learned that the central paradox of our time is this: the economy needs us to keep buying, and the planet needs us to stop. Navigating between these two necessities — without crashing the economy or the ecosystem — is the defining challenge of the twenty-first century.
Veblen, if he were alive today, would probably laugh. And then he would weep. Because the conspicuous consumption he mocked in 1899 has become the foundation of the global economy — and the engine of its possible destruction.
The treadmill keeps spinning. The question is whether we will find the wisdom — and the courage — to step off before it is too late.
"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed." — Mahatma Gandhi
The things you own, as a wise person once said, end up owning you. Understanding this is the first step toward freedom. Not the freedom to buy more — that is the treadmill's promise. But the freedom to ask: how much is enough? And to live by the answer.
This concludes Part X: Economics and Culture. In Part XI, we will widen our lens to the global system — the dollar that rules the world, the financial casinos that shape our lives, the crises that keep erupting, and the great question of climate change that overshadows everything else.