The Price of Prestige

conclusions 163

prestige? And if so, how much are we willing to invest? What are the

opportunity costs of such investments? A discussion of the political and

normative price of prestige is especially important for understanding con-

temporary international trends. Times of ambiguity and change create a

particularly conducive setting for the emergence of Veblen effects. Ours is

a system in which there are high levels of uncertainty regarding both the

distribution of power and the symbols of power. Indeed, this is a system

in which there is very little consensus on how to rank or even to con-

ceptualize the order of the international social hierarchy. It is therefore

not surprising to observe a new surge in apparent cases of conspicuous

consumption, such as the reawakening of the race to space, the emergence

of nascent naval arms races (mainly in the Pacific and Indian Oceans), or

a new wave of ambitious construction projects. Consequently, the current

system makes the study of Veblen effects a very timely and important

topic.

A Veblenian world is populated by prestige maximizers. They are

involved in an endless and expensive cycle of invidious comparison and

pecuniary emulation and are obsessed with the way in which they are per-

ceived by their peers. The conspicuous consumer is still a rational actor,

driven to prefer ostentatious venues of expenditure by the social institu-

tions of her prestige space. This depiction stands in contrast to mainstream

international relations theory, which views its actors as power maximizers,

security maximizers, or welfare maximizers (Mearsheimer 2001 , 138 ; Brooks

1997 ).

By portraying actors as prestige maximizers, the conspicuous consump-

tion theory reemphasizes the competitive nature of the international arena.

In this sense, the world depicted here is not dissimilar to the one portrayed

by traditional realists, who tend to view their actors as motivated by the

quest for power or security. However, unlike most realist accounts, con-

spicuous consumption understands prestige, and therefore power, to be in-

herently social. In fact, the definition of prestige used in this study suggests

that the term prestige is meaningless in the absence of at least a rudimentary

level of societiness. As a social concept, the contextual meaning of pres-

tige relies on the specific intersubjective norms and values of every prestige

space. Once the norms change, the way in which conspicuous consumption

manifests itself changes as well. The suggestion that states can establish sta-

tus through a contest of beneficence that can over time replace traditional

force- based venues of competition, for example, is one that cannot be eas-

ily accounted for by a theoretical framework that views its actors as power