rect
exponent of wealth and as an element in the standard of decency, during
the quasi-peaceable culture. From that point onward, consumption has
gained ground, until, at present, it unquestionably holds the primacy,
though it is still far from absorbing the entire margin of production
above the subsistence minimum.

The early ascendency of leisure as a means of reputability is traceable
to the archaic distinction between noble and ignoble employments.
Leisure is honorable and becomes imperative partly because it shows
exemption from ignoble labor. The archaic differentiation into noble and
ignoble classes is based on an invidious distinction between employments
as honorific or debasing; and this traditional distinction grows into an
imperative canon of decency during the early quasi-peaceable stage.
Its ascendency is furthered by the fact that leisure is still fully as
effective an evidence of wealth as consumption. Indeed, so effective
is it in the relatively small and stable human environment to which the
individual is exposed at that cultural stage, that, with the aid of the
archaic tradition which deprecates all productive labor, it gives rise
to a large impecunious leisure class, and it even tends to limit the
production of the community's industry to the subsistence minimum. This
extreme inhibition of industry is avoided because slave labor, working
under a compulsion more vigorous than that of reputability, is forced to
turn out a product in excess of the subsistence minimum of the working
class. The subsequent relative decline in the use of conspicuous
leisure as a basis of repute is due partly to an increasing relative
effectiveness of consumption as an evidence of wealth; but in part it is
traceable to another force, alien, and in some degree antagonistic, to
the usage of conspicuous waste.

This alien factor is the instinct of workmanship. Other circumstances
permitting, that instinct disposes men to look with favor upon
productive efficiency and on whatever is of human use. It disposes them
to deprecate waste of substance or effort. The instinct of workmanship
is present in all men, and asserts itself even under very adverse
circumstances. So that however wasteful a given expenditure may be in
reality, it must at least have some colorable excuse in the way of an
ostensible purpose. The manner in which, under special circumstances,
the instinct eventuates in a taste for exploit and an invidious
discriminat