The establishment of a producers' society would make each man his own master in somewhat the same sense that the farmer or the artisan who owns his land or tools is the arbiter of his own economic destiny. That is, he would own his job and share in its control. Thus society would eliminate the inequalities that are now created by the concentration of ownership and power in a few hands, and would establish a relative equality among those who produced. The great fear of the modern worker--the fear of unemployment or job-loss--would also be eliminated, since the producers, in a society of which they had control, would be able to hold their own jobs. These various means would serve to dignify labor and production, and to establish a society in which prestige and honor would attach to creation rather than to ownership. 4. _Wisdom in Consumption_ One of the chief weapons of a leisure class is some mark that will easily distinguish its members from the workers. This mark, in modern society, is conspicuous consumption. By the quality and style of its wearing apparel, by the scale of its housing, by the multitude of its possessions, its luxuries and its enjoyments, the leisure class sets itself apart from the remainder of the community, advertising to the world, in the most unmistakable manner, its capacity to spend more than the members of the working class can earn. This need for distinction through consumption has set a living standard which the less well-to-do families seek to emulate. Among the leisured, there is an eager race to decide which can spend the most lavishly, while those of less economic means make a determined effort to put on front and to appear richer than they really are. The result of this competition among neighbors is an absurd attention to the quantity and to the cost of possessions, with a comparative indifference to their intrinsic beauty or to their utility. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the rapidly altering styles of woman's dress. One season silk stockings and low-cut waists are worn in the middle of winter: the next, expensive furs appear in mid-summer. With little reference to artistic effect, and with even less attention to the needs of the individual, the procession of the styles moves across the social stage with tens of millions eagerly watching for the tiniest change in cut or color. The devotion of an entire class to this conspicuous leisure has no social justification save the silly argument that "it makes work." It is one of the logical products of a stratified or class society where the lower classes seek to ape the upper classes, while the latter engage in a mad scramble to determine which shall set the most grotesque standards of social conduct.