There was once a time when identifying the wealthy from the poor was a form of profiling which was perfected with ease. It was easier to tell apart a customer who could spend hundreds at a brand store from one who only came with the intent to browse. These signs, however, are no longer as clear as they once were because the wealthy, as well as the middle class, are both changing their habits of consumption.
With electronics, the science is simple. Every device starts as a high-end purchase and the price drops as the product becomes common in the market and the production cost for the product plummets. The cell phones followed the same pattern and so do other electronics like the DVD players and laptop computers. There has also been very little to no increase in the prices of clothing while the prices at departmental stores have fallen 10 percent between the years 1994 and 2004.
The luxury brands are attempting to access a wider range of customers by making their product a little more affordable compared to the products that they sold maybe a decade ago. In addition to the luxury products becoming cheaper, the Americans are also going to further lengths to accumulate the wealth they want and in order to do that, they are incurring greater debt than they were in the past.
‘Conspicuous consumption’ is a social tactic which many use to heighten their social class in the eyes of other members of the society. This was a strategy which was often applied by the wealthy of the near past with the intent of setting a trend for the others to follow. There may have been few who engaged in conspicuous consumption in the past decades, much of today’s America is attempting to partake in this type of consumption.
Since many of the people are incurring debt to accumulate the luxuries that they hold to the standards of wealth, and because many of the consumption patterns of the wealthy and the middle class have changed over the years, the divide in between the social classes has become quite blurred and this has made the identification of the social classes fairly tricky.
As per the rules of the functionalist theory, the entire society comes together as a whole when implementing all of their strategies. The rich and the socially affluent make it the purpose of their lives to set trends for others to follow. People who earn income to fulfill their desires then follow these trends set by the members of the influential societies. The producers work to study the demands of the society and work out means to fulfill these demands for the consumer.
With the patterns of consumption that we have forever possessed, Marx conflict theory in sociology finds its truth because it is the influential and the rich who use the same influence to make common trends and expectations. These trends are then picked up by those who have fewer resources and despite there being a significant mismatch of resources between the two groups, the trend followers try to match the habits of those whose wealth is endless.
In the race to prove one’s worth to those who live in the same society, much of the American population makes attempts at buying the most expensive product. This is why luxury cars and luxury chocolates remain everyone’s goal to fulfill. The reason for this is very simple; many people and societies link these provisions to their own self-esteem and self-worth. In other words, these luxuries have become a symbol of class amongst the people.
Works Cited
Steinhauer, Jennifer. When the Joneses Wear Jeans. 29 May 2005. <http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/29/us/class/when-the-joneses-wear-jeans.html?_r=0>.
