The walking stick serves the purpose of an advertisement that the bearer's hands are employed otherwise than in useful effort, and it therefore has u… - Thorstein Veblen

In order to stand well in the eyes of the community, it is necessary to come up to a certain, somewhat indefinite, conventional standard of wealth.

In the rare cases where it occurs, a failure to increase one's visible consumption when the means for an increase are at hand is felt in popular apprehension to call for explanation, and unworthy motives of miserliness are imputed.

The periodical press is not only a purveyor of news, opinions, and admonitions; it also supplies the greater part of the literature currently read. ...The standards of excellence that govern this periodical literature... must in no way hamper the purposes of the advertisers. ...Taken in the aggregate, the literary output is designed to meet the tastes of that large body of people who are in the habit of buying freely. The successful magazine writers... follow the taste of the class to whom they speak... They must also conform to the fancies and prejudices of this class as regards the ideals—artistic, moral, religious, or social—for which they speak. The class... is that great body of people who are in moderately easy circumstances... the respectable middle class... of various shades of conservatism, affectation, and snobbery.