ty;
there need be no question of its legitimation. But for the present
purpose--for the purpose of determining what economic grounds are
present in the accepted canons of taste and what is their significance
for the distribution and consumption of goods--the distinction is not
similarly beside the point. The position of machine products in the
civilized scheme of consumption serves to point out the nature of the
relation which subsists between the canon of conspicuous waste and the
code of proprieties in consumption. Neither in matters of art and taste
proper, nor as regards the current sense of the serviceability of goods,
does this canon act as a principle of innovation or initiative. It does
not go into the future as a creative principle which makes innovations
and adds new items of consumption and new elements of cost. The
principle in question is, in a certain sense, a negative rather than a
positive law. It is a regulative rather than a creative principle. It
very rarely initiates or originates any usage or custom directly. Its
action is selective only. Conspicuous wastefulness does not directly
afford ground for variation and growth, but conformity to its
requirements is a condition to the survival of such innovations as may
be made on other grounds. In whatever way usages and customs and methods
of expenditure arise, they are all subject to the selective action of
this norm of reputability; and the degree in which they conform to its
requirements is a test of their fitness to survive in the competition
with other similar usages and customs. Other thing being equal, the more
obviously wasteful usage or method stands the better chance of survival
under this law. The law of conspicuous waste does not account for the
origin of variations, but only for the persistence of such forms as are
fit to survive under its dominance. It acts to conserve the fit, not to
originate the acceptable. Its office is to prove all things and to hold
fast that which is good for its purpose.

Chapter Seven ~~ Dress as an Expression of the Pecuniary Culture

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