Rob Walker—New York Times colum­nist (Con­sumed) and author of Buy­ing In—calls for an end to con­spic­u­ous con­sump­tion, the pur­chas­ing of lav­ish goods purely to project wealth, and a move towards the invis­i­ble badge:

Thorstein Veblen intro­duced the idea of “con­spic­u­ous con­sump­tion” in The The­ory of the Leisure Class, in 1899. And it’s still being recy­cled today. Veblen gave exam­ples like the man who parades down Main Street in “stain­less” linen, with a super­flu­ous walk­ing stick. These objects sup­pos­edly told a story—“evidence of leisure”—to an audi­ence of strangers.

Today’s con­sumer is sup­posed to be a lit­tle more sophis­ti­cated than that. So it’s puz­zling how many mar­keters still talk about how a cer­tain beer or sneaker or hand­bag func­tions as a so-called “badge.” Even hybrid cars are said to be eco-status mark­ers that show “con­spic­u­ous con­cern” about the envi­ron­ment. More schol­arly observers call this “sig­nal­ing.” But in the end it’s all repack­aged Veblen: The idea is that we buy stuff mostly to impress other people.

Per­haps this was true in the past. But the time has come to retire the con­spic­u­ous con­sump­tion idea. Observers of con­sumer cul­ture (mar­keters, to name an exam­ple) need to under­stand that as a con­cept, it’s inad­e­quate. The rest of us (con­sumers, that is) need to under­stand that even if we wanted it to work, it just doesn’t anymore.

There is a bet­ter idea—the invis­i­ble badge.

More from Rob Walker’s own blog, Mur­ket­ing.