Want, Need and Conspicuous Consumption

Need? What is need?
For Henry Ford and Frank Lloyd Wright need was desire in disguise. Ford needed to indulge his passion for machinery, to progress, to consume, to go faster. He needed to produce, he needed more money. Frank Lloyd Wright pandered to people's needs - he gave them what they wanted. What the people wanted was style and technology, fabulous houses, shiny beacons of progression and wealth. These sons of pious farmer immigrants who had the 'sweat harder to get closer to God' mantra drummed into their skulls produced as much as they could. They cashed in on the fruits of their labours, just as their forefathers had reaped bountiful crops from the soil. They got filthy rich.

Thornstein Veblen wasn't a labourer, he was a thinker. He sat for most of his life not making money, sat in his dusty libraries, sat bitterly observing the Henry Fords. He sat knowing no true good could come from the relentless pursuit of power and wealth. He realised that yes, indeed, anyone can come from nothing, there is an American Dream. But money doesn't buy happiness. Money can be ugly and evil, it is corrupting, it causes pride and envy. The Fords were taking the trouble to progress, to push other people in the name of development. But ultimately Veblen knew the irony; the Fords would end their days lonely old men on a farmstead just like him, cursing the Frankenstein world they had created.
That was a bitter drink to swallow.

So today we are stuck with the gross accumulation of dollars to manifest power; our Frankenstein, our Machine. Society is sick with overt displays of wealth and with vulgar pretentions. We have rich chavs and Paris 'the American royal' Hilton for chrissake! We don't know what we're doing anymore. Where are we going? What good is it anyway?

I'll be damned if i know! I'm off for a bitter drink of my own....

....a nice long gin and tonic! Ha!