The Price of Prestige

50 chapter two

of such “second image reversed.” A symbol that was aimed at repelling ex­

ternal threats was adopted as a way of outspending domestic competitors.

Another example is provided by Krostenko’s ( 2001 ) study of status per­

formance in ancient Rome. Krostenko finds that Roman elites tended to

imitate the international consumption patterns of the Roman state. Thus,

the elites, for example, “adopted versions of the aestheticism practiced by

the state to define their own status” ( 27 ). If Rome was superior to all other

nations, a Roman citizen could imitate Rome’s behavior when facing its

hapless international competitors in order to demonstrate his own superi­

ority when facing domestic competition. Contemporary critics of extrava­

gance and waste, like Cicero, tended to direct their critique at excess in

the private realm, res privita, but to ignore similar wasteful trends at the

national level, res publica (Thomson 1993 , 3 – 4 ). This normative stance

seems to tolerate, and to an extent even advocate, conspicuous consump­

tion in the international and national arenas. It stands in sharp contrast

with the more contemporary discourse that tends to tolerate private acts

of excess and to denounce extravagance and waste in the public sphere.

Status Symbols and Tests of Status

Once an index is established as a status symbol, actors may wish to im­

prove their standing by manipulating that index even if they do not possess

the quality it had originally sought to reflect.^16 Hence, for example, actors

can try to construct “cardboard navies” in the hope of being perceived

as a great power even when they do not possess the resources and skills

required for the procurement of an effective naval force (Luttwak 1974 ,

40 ). Veblen captures the vulnerability of status symbols to manipulation

and misrepresentation through his focus on the simultaneous processes of

emulation and differentiation. While the lower classes try to improve their

position in the hierarchy by obtaining the markers of the upper classes,

the upper classes try to maintain their superiority by upping the ante and

acquiring more expensive and exclusive symbols (Bagwell and Bernheim

1996 ). For Bourdieu, similarly, “pretentious challengers” who adopt sym­

bols in an attempt to emulate the upper classes vulgarize those symbols

and force the upper classes to pick new ones. This desire for distinction

leads to a spiral of inexhaustible demand.^17 For both Bourdieu and Veb­

len, therefore, a successful policy of differentiation requires a good dosage

of snobbery and excess.