Showing off

I read in the FT that all the rich people who used to show off by appearing to the media at first nights, fancy restaurants, fancy locations and all that sort of thing, have been reduced to showing off by buying luxury goods and then putting selfies plus onto Facebook - or such like places - by way of conspicuous consumption. Where by selfies plus I mean picture of self, partner and luxury good in question, preferably with a large and obvious logo well in frame.

On which I offer two thoughts.

First, the car snapped above, somewhere in South Korea, is clearly playing to people who think the more bulbs to the headlight the better. While us humble folk here in Epsom tend to think in terms of the exorbitant charges of car dealers and their garages for supplying spares. 'O no sir. We can't supply just one bulb; you have to have the whole assembly. And then pay us to spray it to match the rest of your car'.

Second, as Honoré de Balzac observed getting on for two hundred years ago now, luxury goods are an efficient way of recycling the riches of the fortunate few into the pockets of the impecunious many. Luxury goods soak up huge amounts of labour - that is almost the point of them - and paying for that labour amounts to a useful amount of trickle down. OK, so it is all rather wasteful given the state of the planet, but at least it is keeping some workers happy.

I recall that on the coasts of what is now British Columbia, the rich chiefs used to pay what were then large sums to the peasants (or whatever the lower orders were there called) to have large totem poles felled, carved, painted and then erected outside their log cabins.

While here in the UK, socially conscious aristocrats used to employ lots of rurals, unemployed in some agricultural downturn or other, on building substantial brick walls around their estates. Walls which were not usually high enough to keep out poachers and other interlopers, but which were substantial enough to survive into the 21st century. Any money left over could be poured into ridiculously elaborate kitchen gardens, green houses and cold frames, useful for growing pineapples, figs and other exotica. Which the wife could then parade in front of worthy neighbours.

PS: were these totem poles made of young coastal redwoods? These trees certainly seem to grow very tall and straight in this country, very suitable for totem poles. At least in a country where such trees hugely outnumber the people.

Reference 1: psmv2: Totem Pole City. Some totem poles.

Reference 2: Peasant - Wikipedia. Being a word which those of working age might be unfamiliar with.