It will in place, by way of illustration, to show in some detail how the
economic principles so far set forth apply to everyday facts in some one
direction of the life process. For this purpose no line of consumption
affords a more apt illustration than expenditure on dress. It is
especially the rule of the conspicuous waste of goods that finds
expression in dress, although the other, related principles of pecuniary
repute are also exemplified in the same contrivances. Other methods
of putting one's pecuniary standing in evidence serve their end
effectually, and other methods are in vogue always and everywhere; but
expenditure on dress has this advantage over most other methods, that
our apparel is always in evidence and affords an indication of our
pecuniary standing to all observers at the first glance. It is also true
that admitted expenditure for display is more obviously present, and is,
perhaps, more universally practiced in the matter of dress than in any
other line of consumption. No one finds difficulty in assenting to the
commonplace that the greater part of the expenditure incurred by all
classes for apparel is incurred for the sake of a respectable appearance
rather than for the protection of the person. And probably at no other
point is the sense of shabbiness so keenly felt as it is if we fall
short of the standard set by social usage in this matter of dress. It
is true of dress in even a higher degree than of most other items of
consumption, that people will undergo a very considerable degree of
privation in the comforts or the necessaries of life in order to afford
what is considered a decent amount of wasteful consumption; so that
it is by no means an uncommon occurrence, in an inclement climate,
for people to go ill clad in order to appear well dressed. And the
commercial value of the goods used for clotting in any modern community
is made up to a much larger extent of the fashionableness, the
reputability of the goods than of the mechanical service which they
render in clothing the person of the wearer. The need of dress is
eminently a "higher" or spiritual need.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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