Portal:Business/Selected quote/December 2007

"The rich adopt novelties and become accustomed to their use. This sets a fashion which others imitate. Once the richer classes have adopted a certain way of living, producers have an incentive to improve the methods of manufacture so that soon it is possible for the poorer classes to follow suit. Thus luxury furthers progress. Innovation 'is the whim of an elite before it becomes a need of the public. The luxury today is the necessity of tomorrow.' Luxury is the roadmaker of progress: it develops latent needs and makes people discontented. In so far as they think consistently, moralists who condemn luxury must recommend the comparatively desireless existence of the wild life roaming in the woods as the ultimate ideal of civilized life."


 * &mdash;Ludwig von Mises, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, 1936