status symbols and luxury goods 45
Symbols of class membership usually do not refer to one source of sta
tus but to a configuration of sources. It is usually not enough for a country
to show superiority on one index of power alone in order to gain legitimate
claim to a great power status. Hence, actors will seek to acquire at least
some of the constellation of status symbols that could signal membership
in a certain class. Therefore, it is not surprising to find the same actors ex
hibiting patterns of conspicuous consumption across different indexes of
power. Thus, for example, we can find Brazil acquiring a carrier, investing
in an ambitious space program, and striving to achieve an enhanced role
in international prosocial endeavors. This complexity of class distinction
makes it more difficult for observers to identify fraud. An actor may have
some of the requirements for membership but fall short on others. There
fore, as long as the pretender is within the margin of doubt we will find
it hard to reject the legitimacy of her claims for membership in a desired
class (Goffman 1951 , 297 ).
Status symbols are not a function of cost alone. Classification depends
not only on the magnitude of actors’ consumption but also on the type of
goods that they choose to consume. For Bourdieu ( 1984 ), taste has a clas
sifying significance that is central to the process of class distinction. Taste
directs members of a certain social stratum to choose one bundle of com
modities over another. For example, observers note that emerging powers
tend to show a “widespread propensity to procure highly sophisticated, ex
pensive weapons systems and technologies, despite well known absorption
handicaps, and to reject equally serviceable, but cheaper, and perhaps less
expensive options that are readily available” (Jones and Hildreth 1984 , 65 ).
Many of these weapons systems are so poorly maintained and operated
that they often actively reduce the military capabilities of these emerging
powers. Interestingly, according to C. Wright Mills, patterns of conspicuous
consumption are most prevalent among the nouveaux riches, as aspiring
newcomers try to ensure their position by translating money into status
symbols (Mills 1959 , 58 ). In many ways emerging powers are the nouveaux
riches of the international system, and they seem to behave accordingly. We
can assume that both the nouveaux riches and the nouveaux poor would
have greater incentives to invest in the acquisition of status symbols: the
first to announce their arrival, the latter to delay and conceal their decline.
Being labeled a member of a certain class often entails categorical sig
nificance that cannot be subordinated to questions of balance of power.
The label “major power” brings with it certain privileges and responsi
bilities. However, not all international relations scholars accept this no
tion of classification. Waltz’s view of international relations, for example,
