Luxurious products are often confused with money for many people simply think luxury is no more than a showoff of fortune from extravagant wealthy people. However, it might sound counter-intuitive to say that luxury and money are two totally different things, yet very closely related like bread and butter, heaven and earth, thunder and lightning. I guess it is the strong connection between the two terms on which most people focus, thus become unaware of the differences. The reason why I bring up this discussion is to clear out the confusion between the two terms in epistemological and socio-cultural senses, and then give thoughts about the “price” of luxury.
On a very intuitive level, myth is an explicit and meaningful manifestation of human imagination. Myths have been out there for decades and centuries and more importantly each of them holds some facts in itself. As in the well-known legend of Faust, Faustus is a scholar who becomes desperate and disillusioned with his own idealism, and eventually sells his soul to the Devil for intelligence, power, and immortal life. Although fictional in literature, the legend is based on an actual magician who lived in the area of northern Germany in the fifteenth century. (https://www.faust.com/). To sum up, it is the pact with the Devil, not money, which fulfills Faust’s desires. In the myth of Golden Age from Greek mythology, it is actually the lack of money that brings out peace, harmony, stability and then happiness. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age )
Why does money have such an enormous power on human beings yet so far from belonging to the same league with human desires like knowledge, beauty, happiness, youth and eternality?
First, we have to understand that money is a socio-cultural phenomenon. According to Georg Simmel, one of the first generation of German sociologists, he wrote a wonderful book The Philosophy of Money. In the book (Simmel 1900, 193) he said: “money is the hypostasis (accumulation) of trade between human beings,… if the economic value of objects lies in the exchange relationship that they form, money is the expression of this relationship that has achieved autonomy.” In this sense, money is purely a social agreement. It represents the collective abstraction of trades, thus becomes independent of each individual’s opinion. Nonetheless, if this social agreement ceases to be shared by the community, money loses all values. For example, in the places where people trade shells, other currencies like dollars are worthless. However, even if only a few people with intention to trade dollars appear, the dollars will start to increase in value. Therefore, money can and has tendency to become a unique and universal instrument for measuring the social scale for it can provide the “economic fluidity” which is indispensible to any societal development and globalization.
Luxury is also a socio-cultural invention, but serves a contrasting role against money. While money emphasizes the fluidity of “exchange relationships” among people without prejudice; luxury, on the other hand, underlines the recreation of social stratification, to serve the welfares of certain groups of people. As for an analogy, money serves as the fuel, the recreation of social structure as the engine. The operation starts when raw materials are converted into luxurious culturally sophisticated products; then these products are traded among people on the top of the vertical hierarchies to enrich their cultures and values. The process can’t be completed without money as the fuel. Therefore, money is not the engine itself but has the power to stop the engine, because no machine can run without fuel. Apart from the analogy, it becomes clearer and clearer that if luxury helps strengthen the social caste, money can break down these hierarchies.
Another big difference between these two terms is the unidimensionality of money as opposed to the multidimensionality of luxury. Because money is a collective and non-subjective convention, it is “boundless alongside the complex and ever-changing multiplicity of human beings and their social life.” A 100-dollar bill owned by a common person is not worth less than 100-dollar bill owned by a king. Nevertheless, money, if it is the sole criterion, would create a structureless society, and thus unlivable for people. Imagine the situation, people work days and nights to earn money, and then what? The society with only money existing is disoriented and unmotivated because money doesn’t bring on longing; what brings on longing is not money itself, but what you can get with it. It is where luxury comes into place with the concrete semantic richness of cultural and human values. Luxury represents everything which money doesn’t have: social status, public recognition, self-indulgence, ownership of a part of distant cultures, aesthetics, creativity, and more. A concert performer might not be satisfied with only receiving money for playing, what might even mean more to him is the applause and appreciation from the audience. A bank note, alone by itself, is nothing luxurious; it is the potential to convert it into luxury that has meanings to us, making the bank note valuable. Remember, money is only valuable in trades. Luxury, however, doesn’t necessarily follow that rule.
After a long discussion, is it now manifestly clear that luxury is not only money and money by itself is not luxury?
Now we can start to understand that price on its own doesn’t make something a luxury. An ordinary car will cost more than a pair of luxury shoes. In addition, raising the price of a product unreasonably would not make it more desirable but unattractive and unwished for. What makes luxury valuable is obviously not the price. The meaning of high price is to make it more exclusive and merited to people who are highly aware of the inner values of each luxury product that they own. In many European countries, most luxury stores do not use the price tag. Too much focus on the price will take out all the entertainment as long as the appreciation for a work of artistry.
With money, you can have more or less; with luxury, you have it or you don’t.
Hope you enjoy this long post! :)
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