At Marginal Revolution, Alex Tabarrok has an interesting post about black/white differences in what Thorstein Veblen called conspicuous consumption. It begins:
Several years ago Bill Cosby chided poor blacks for spending their limited incomes on high-priced shoes and other items of conspicuous consumption instead of investing in education.
The comments are fascinating, including this:
Merely being white is a way of signaling wealth. If you don’t believe it, visit Peru.
Excellent, I always noticed that if you are white you can enter a shop with not too good clothes and nobody cares.
But if you were black and wore not-too-good clothes that was a problem? That’s interesting. Where did you notice this?
Seriously, Seth? You’ve never seen this, anywhere?
That’s right — I’ve never seen it. The only shopping I do much of is food shopping in an upscale neighborhood. Persons, black or white, wearing not-too-good clothes are never seen. I’m curious where exactly he is talking about.