"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. ...The principle... is... a negative rather than a positive law. It is a regulative rather than a creative principle. ...It acts to conserve the fit, not to originate the acceptable."
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The Theory of the Leisure Class
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