the luxury belief class, this might explain some of the craziness of the Left

https://quillette.com/2019/11/16/thorstein-veblens-theory-of-the-leisure-class-a-status-update/


The rich espouse beliefs that only they can afford. Open borders.. doesn't effect them

"n the past, people displayed their membership of the upper class with their material accoutrements. But today, luxury goods are more affordable than before. And people are less likely to receive validation for the material items they display. This is a problem for the affluent, who still want to broadcast their high social position. But they have come up with a clever solution. The affluent have decoupled social status from goods, and re-attached it to beliefs."

 

no comments?

 

why is not showing up on new post?

 

Interesting article. I knew about the biological phenomenon of the costly signal, but I guess applying the concept to beliefs is cool.

As to immigration: I think the rich favor illegal immigration so they get cheap gardeners and house maids.

Finally, I wonder why the non-rich then vote for tax cuts for the rich, so the rich can use the additional funds for their costly signal to make themselves feel superior by damaging society as a whole? Doesn't make sense to me, unless the non-rich have been trained by said rich to vote against their interest.

 

The non-rich have been trained to believe they too will one day be rich. Wouldn’t want to vote against your future interests when you get past this temporary embarrassment.
Ever hear people complain about taxes on lottery winnings? Same concept.

 

As someone seeking a PhD, Rob, will have to defend his Thesis at some point before others who already have a PhD. If he continues down this path of sociometric analysis, which is rather one sided given the subject matter, he's going to set himself up for becoming the poster child of how not to prepare a PhD Thesis. I'll point out just one contradiction here:




"I went to Yale on the GI Bill."

LOL, well, I'm not laughing at the fact that he went to Yale (though I find that highly dubious myself - tongue-in-cheek). I'm laughing at the fact that he appears to be writing about the problems of wealthy people while completely ignoring that his ride into Yale was made possible because of the greatest Redistribution of Wealth Program ever conceived!

I mean after all, the United States is said to be the wealthiest nation the world has ever known and the GI Bill is funded by We The People through a massive Redistribution of Wealth Program (or System) called the IRS. So, it was the stolen wealth of others that got him into Yale. And, no doubt, many of those who have their wealth stolen each year by the IRS are indeed not "wealthy." So, whose "beliefs" are we really talking about here? I think Rob, fits the profile that most Americans seem to align themselves with and that's the misappropriation of Money and the misunderstanding of the function and purpose of Money. Therefore, his "beliefs" about the "beliefs" of those who have "wealth" is itself bound to be a miscalculation.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Wealth or Wealth Creation. There is something very wrong with taxing Wealth and Wealth Creation to extreme and then spoiling that wealth with abundantly abhorrent mismanagement in the form of obtuse spending habits. Wealthy People create jobs. Those jobs provide a way of life for those who have not yet created sufficient wealth to become wealth creationists themselves. Rob, should have focused on this salient point. It is not the Wealthy or the Poor who are the problem.

The real problem is a Government hell bent on depriving People from becoming Wealth Creators by stealing the wealth they do produce in the form of taxes they (the government) use to mismanage the country. If people knew the real purpose and function of Money and if the government were not in the business of stealing The People's Money, then a far greater portion in our society could reach levels of Wealth and Wealth Creation that would make such observations about the "beliefs" of Wealthy people completely moot.

Instead, we have a government that steals real wealth and a populous that "believes" in Entitlement as the great equalizer. Combine those two together and you've got the beginnings of a great PhD Thesis and plenty of empirical and historical evidence to more than adequately defend it.

 

Voting against ones self interest is often imperative to voting for the best interest of the country.

 

Buying cars /houses and such made by the non rich , somehow the non rich votes against their interests by voting for tax cuts?

 

It may be that some non-rich believe in liberty, freedom, fairness, and the free market. It may be that some non-rich believe that extracting an exorbitant price from their fellow citizens to give themselves free stuff is immoral. It may be that some non-rich believe in personal responsibility and a good work ethic instead of freeloading off their fellow citizens. Yep, that's it...

 

You didn't read the article cited in the OP, did you? Because if you had, you would realize that the hypothesis is that the rich engage in costly signaling as a means to show status, which is not only costly to themselves, but can also be costly to society. Maybe once you read the article, we can have a discussion.

 

Agreed but the conservative affluent are the philanthropists, are the most benevolent, altruistic and humane, The liberals just virtue signal, like to talk a good game and then congratulate themselves, so full of ****.

 

Because tax cuts for the rich is a bs meme by people who did cheerfully take 80% of everything everyone earned so bureaucrats could live more comfortably.

 

You said

It is your contention that the rich damage society and the non-rich, correct?

Apparently it is also your contention that the non-rich should vote for policies that extract money from the rich, correct?

Is that because of a desire to punish the rich?

 

Did you not start a thread claiming that modern conservatives weren’t like you, an old fashion conservative. Yet here you are, expressing what modern conservatives express and not what Edmund Burke would have expressed.

I went to college with a scholarship from the state of Colorado. I really doubt it was theft that paid for my education.

 

The Koch brothers and Bill Gates prove you wrong.

 

The idea isn’t to punish the rich, but to prevent them.

 

I don’t know how this plays into this, but I have noticed that the wealthier one becomes, the more one tends to expect others to do things for them. You can collect a bunch of people who were friends as kids, but one has become much wealthier than others. You would think the wealthier friend would shower a little of their largeness on their friends. Yet typically that is not how it works. If they pool their money, the wealthier one is likely to give the least, do the least amount of work, and expect to be praised the most for it.

 

To prevent them from doing what? Please specify.
So your idea is to prevent them from doing "things detrimental to society" by taking away their money and making them non-rich?

 

The point of the article is that the Rich can afford to have their wacky liberal beliefs because they can #1 Afford them, and to demonstrate to others of their class that they are so rich as to be able to #2 They have enough money that they won't suffer the effects of their wacky beliefs..
It is closely associated with the idea of virtue signaling.

 

Preventing one person from gaining so much wealth that they can unduly influence public policy. It is kind of hard to have a democracy when a few, by way of wealth, can buy elections.

 

So the remedy is to confiscate their wealth and make them non-rich?

 

Thank you... this point seems to have gone over the head of some posters here.

 

It’s also problematic when progressives keep people poor so they can buy their votes for peanuts.

 

Tax them. It was part of the original idea of the United States. The founders envisioned a classless society. It was people like Thomas Jefferson who first proposed the progressive tax system and inheritance taxes, precisely for the purpose of preventing any one person from accumulating too much wealth.

 

I have always had this wacky liberal belief that the human condition can be improved through technological innovation. Being as ideas are free, I’ve made a lot of money over the years from implementing those wacky ideas.

Liberal ideas are the future.