lieu of imitations and of cheaper real jewels; and (2) rich people
would have to buy more and costlier ones than were formerly needed, in
order to retain their positions in the social gradations. This
principle affects the consumption of a wide range of articles, the
possession of which seems, outwardly at least, to stamp the owners as
belonging in a certain stratum of society. It increases the demand for
fine clothing, furnishings, and equipage, multiplies social functions,
and induces participation in all manner of costly diversions. The
elasticity of the market for luxurious goods is, in general, greatly
increased by the action of this motive. The cheapening of them causes
them to be consumed by the lower classes and renders the use of
greater quantities or higher qualities of them a social necessity for
the higher classes.[1]

[1] It is also true that an entire variety of gems or other
things of this genus might, by mere cheapness, be branded as
too common to be used by the very wealthy, except for new and
inferior modes of adornment.

We shall soon see that a reduction in the cost of any one article
usually causes the use of it to trench on that of all manner of things
which are on the margin of consumption and are not similarly
cheapened.

_Changes of Cost of Different Goods Never Uniform._--The cost of all
articles is never reduced at the same time, and it is impossible that
all of them should remain in the same order of desirability in the
estimation of purchasers. Many things, however, are often cheapened at
the same time, though in different degrees. Whatever furnishes a very
common raw material at a lower cost than has prevailed, as did the
invention of the Bessemer process of steel making, makes everything
into which that material enters cheaper. By reducing the cost of
railroads and engines, cars and steamships, the Bessemer process
indirectly lowered the prices of goods that have to be carried, which
means practically everything. A cheap motive power acts in the same
way and lowers the costs of producing an unlimited number of goods.
Even in the case of such general improvements as this the reductions
of price are not uniform. Some goods are affected more than others.
Cheap steel lessens the cost of bridges more than it does that of
dwelling houses, and in the case of many improvements the effect is
confined to a limited class of products, if not to a single one.

_How the Disturbing