CONSPICUOUS CONFUSION - A CRITIQUE OF VEBLENS THEORY OF CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION

Veblen's concept of conspicuous consumption, although widely known and commonly invoked, has rarely been examined critically; the associated ''theory'' has never been tested. Ir is suggested that the reason for this lies in the difficulty of determining the criterion that defines the phenomenon, a difficulty that derives from Veblen's failure to in tegrate two contrasting conceptual formulations. These are, first, an interpretive or subjective version that conceives of conspicuous consu mption as action marked by the presence of certain intentions, purpose s, or motives, and second, a functionalist formulation in which conspi cuous consumption is viewed as a form of behavior characterized by par ticular end results or outcomes. Consideration of each of these strand s reveals major difficulties that prevent the construction of an opera tional definition of conspicuous consumption and hence the extraction of a workable theory from Veblen's discussion.