{"id":12539,"date":"2024-09-06T11:50:48","date_gmt":"2024-09-06T11:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=12539"},"modified":"2024-09-06T11:50:48","modified_gmt":"2024-09-06T11:50:48","slug":"the-more-this-rolex-costs-the-more-you-want-it-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=12539","title":{"rendered":"The More This Rolex Costs, the More You Want It. Here's Why"},"content":{"rendered":"


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To start with, it\u2019s all about understanding the trade-off between work and free time, explains University College London professor of economics Wendy Carlin. \u201cYou work to get income that you can spend on goods and services. As you become better off, we would expect people to both want more free time and more goods; the question is what the balance is between one or the other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Different societies make different choices; Carlin touches on the classic contrast between European and American work-life balance. \u201cPeople say \u2018Oh, the Europeans are just very lazy, and they take all these holidays.\u2019 But they’re making a different choice in terms of the way they take advantage of their higher living standards, because the thing that’s really scarce is time.\u201d Veblen\u2019s theories come in when you look at why<\/em> people work more in different countries, she explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of those people are working two jobs just to survive,\u201d Carlin says, \u201cbut some of them are working two jobs because they want to have the latest thing, the new phone<\/a>, or the new car<\/a>, or whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n

It might sound obvious to us, but it defies traditional economic theory, which, in a nutshell, says we should be happy once our basic needs are met\u2014and it would have seemed like madness to the academics of a hundred years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was thought that by now we would be working just two days a week,\u201d says Carlin, in reference to John Maynard Keynes\u2019 1930 paper Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren<\/em>, in which the economist predicted that improvements in technology and manufacturing efficiency would leave people needing only to work 15 hours a week. \u201cInstead, people work two, three jobs, take two weeks\u2019 holiday and have more goods. And why do they do that? Well, as Veblen said, because they’re comparing themselves with other people.\u201d<\/p>\n

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