[.ca] Luxury Fever: Money and Happiness in an Era of Excess (ISBN 0691070113)

From Amazon.com:
Luxury Fever: Why Money Fails to Satisfy in an Era of Excess is a serious examination of the long-term costs associated with our society's ever-accelerating spiral of conspicuous consumption, followed by a far-reaching remedy that will intrigue anyone concerned with related fiscal issues. Robert Frank, a Cornell University professor of economics, ethics, and public policy, who previously coauthored The Winner-Take-All Society, believes neither foolishness nor greed is really responsible for our relentless desire to own flashier household appliances, bigger sport-utility vehicles, and fancier suburban houses; rather, he contends, it is the ongoing behavior of our peers which ultimately determines how much we spend and how we spend it. Frank goes on to claim, however, that this knowledge alone may actually point us toward an alternative that is both acceptable and practical. "By a simple and easily achieved rearrangement of our current consumption incentives," he writes, "we can effectively enrich ourselves by literally trillions of dollars a year." He then goes on to discuss the recent boom in luxury spending, its potential implications for those at all income levels, his suggestions for altering current consumption patterns, and the reasons that redirecting these funds could benefit everyone. --Howard Rothman

Luxury Fever also explains why US jobs are disappearing.:
Professor Frank's title for Chaper 10 'smart for one dumb for all' sums up much of the recent business and political behavior in our country. Jobs are going to China and a flood of imports are drowning our factories because our government and business leaders are practicing "smart for one" while our country slides toward the status of a 3rd world nation. It is said that a nation's wealth is measured by what it can manufacture - not by what it consumes (who said that?) Every CEO worth his or her salt these days is moving manufacturing operations overseas as fast as possile to get a piece of the short-term profits under "smart for one". If this continues, the 'dumb for all' effect will doom us to to poverty and China will (again?) rule the world of commerce. Luxury Fever is a great book which should be read by every person who cares about the USA over the long haul - especially our elected officials. I'd like to see RH Franks (Luxury Fever) team up with Ravi Batra (The Myth of Free Trade) as lobbyists to return sanity to our country's business climate. Adam Smith has been taken out of context. When he spoke about the "Invisible Hand" (of commerce) there was an ethic in the land that accepted pervasive empathy as a given. Today, our leaders push unbridled avarice and seem to think that empathy is only for the weak 'players'.

the status treadmill:
About 100 years after Veblen coined the phrase, "conspicuous consumption," Frank finds himself trying to make sense of outrageous consumption patterns during another era of prosperity. Why the love for expensive grills, cars and watches? The answer, in brief, is status. Because social status is measured relative to others (rather than by absolute standards), consumers step on a treadmill that finds them trying to outmeasure their peers. This treadmill doesn't lead to any greater happiness. Though individual satisfaction tends to increase with greater income and greater income slightly associates with higher satisfaction in the U.S., the elevations in per capita income within countries over time don't correspond with greater satisfaction (above some threshold). We have more stuff than our grandparents but not more satisfaction because of it. Pointing out that society as a whole would be better served by reallocating the resources wasted on individual luxury items by investing in clean air and water, paying teachers and maintaining roads, Frank shows that this conflict between individual and group interests represents a public goods problem. Though legal restrictions, social norms and other mechanisms have been advanced to solve these dilemmas elsewhere, Frank favors a progressive consmption tax for the U.S. This contention muddies the water between advocacy and the science of economics. In his support of it, as elsewhere in the book, he overgeneralizes from a few lines of evidence ("all evidence shows that...") to broad conclusions, leaving the reader questioning how completely the relevant evidence has been reviewed. Yet the clarity, readability and timeliness of this book make it well worth reading. Will it help us get off the status treadmill?

Thought Provoking For Social/Behavioral Science Students:
As the review title indicates, students & professors of economics, politics, psychology and other social & behavioral sciences will benefit from perusing the pages of Bob Frank's commentary on contemporary American life. Regardless of whether you agree with Professor Frank's solution to our society's "arms race of consumerism", the book makes the reader think about the materialism evident in much of the U.S. Using amusing analogies to describe human behavior related to "buying excess," Frank explains these activities with theories of psychology and economics. His insight provokes thought and entertains the reader throughout the book. Whether explaining why many middle class couples spend $5,000 for the latest Viking model gas grill for their patio, or describing how two millionaires childishly built larger and more lavish yachts just to own the biggest and best cruiser in the world, Frank delivers interesting examples which help provide an understanding for why many people do the things they do. Read this book if you are a student or teacher of the social or behavioral sciences. Whether you agree with Frank's prescription to correct societal consumerism or you don't believe America has a problem, this book entertains the reader and stimulates ideas for discussion. Well worth the read!

The Worst Book To Ever See the Light of Day:
I'm concerned with many of the summaries offered of the book's main points. I cannot help but feel that most criticisms of Frank's book come from those opposed to taxation, especially progressive, as a general principle. Taken as a whole, that's fine- a discussion for another day, perhaps over Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom" and Sen's "Development as Freedom." The problem is that it seems to give birth to partial quotations, accusations of returning to "planned economies," and the like. Frank's book addresses many criticisms, although certainly not all. He does however take on those criticisms that seem, at least me, strongest and most common in the preceding "reviews" of his book. The proposal is not a call for a "planned economy,"- a point that Frank belabors convincingly. It is not an attempt to eat the rich- it is a proposal to _replace_ other taxes with this one. Many reviews have also ignored Frank's incorporation of evolutionary psychology/biology in discussing his proposal. This alone makes the book a worthwhile read. Even if one disagrees with his solution, the consumer behavior that leads him to these conclusions is fascinating and to me seems true enough. This competitive behavior exists, of course, in varying degrees in different cases- a point not lost in Frank's book but absent in many, many reviews. This is not a crank's work- certainly many creeds for taxation are. But as is often the case, a sort of fundamentalist belief in the association of "free markets" and "freedom" have clouded the reasoning and patience of many reviewers here.

Let Them Be Lemmings:
Let Them Be Lemmings Some factual common trends are noted by Frank: in general, wages in the U.S. have been static and even in decline for most Americans in recent decades. Yet, proportional per capita spending on luxury goods has increased significantly. The results according to this author and others who've conducted numerous studies and research is a weaker economy, high personal debt, longer working hours, less sleep, and having to work until death, in debt of course. We're all aware of the American "gotta have this or that" bug. Many have it, but many don't. Some don't want it. Why do certain luxury goods and "gadgets" become oh-so-popular in American society? Frank notes, and correctly, that the desire for many to purchase certain material things is by no-doubt influenced by what others are buying or want to buy. The concept of "social status" is a concept where human beings in mass-consumption cultures judge each other in this context in RELATION to our peers. These "peers" may be the strangers we live next to in suburban anonymity, our co-workers, friends, or the strangers we see driving next to us in our daily suburban traffic jams. (Note my use of the word "stranger"). The commonly known terms such as "keeping up with the Joneses," the status treadmill" the "arms race of consumerism, Consumer Feticism," and Velben's "Conspicuous Consumption" are presented. But not from a moralistic standpoint but a behaviorist, biological, psychological, and an economic standpoint. The first part of the book informs us about many things we already aware of but expands upon it through the various academic fields already noted above. The second part of the book is the "solution part." What the author thinks can be done to change the current pattern. Here's where it can get sticky for some. The solution Frank offers from his research is a thesis on Human Behaviour, and he proposes a "political-economic" solution: taxing consumption. The solution is the part of this work that leads to the economic analysis of the "hypothetical" once again, and there's nothing wrong with that. Although theoretical, the first part is interesting, and the second part may be for some.