问答题 1.  In 1899, an economist coined the phrase "conspicuous consumption" to denote the way that material objects were paraded as indicators of social position and status. More than 100 years later, conspicuous consumption is still part of the contemporary capitalist landscape, but today luxury goods are significantly more accessible. At the same time, we've witnessed the advent of a middle-class consumer market that demands more material goods at cheaper price points.
    However, the popularization of consumer goods has made them far less useful as a means of displaying status. Both the rich and the middle classes now can own fancy TVs and nice handbags. They both lease SUVs, take airplanes, and go on cruises. On the surface, the ostensible consumer objects favoured by these two groups no longer reside in two completely different universes.
    Given that everyone can now buy designer handbags and new cars, the rich have taken to using much more implicit signifiers of their social position. The superrich still show off their wealth with yachts and Bentleys and gated mansions. But apart from this group, the dramatic changes in elite spending are driven by a well-to-do, educated elite, or the so-called aspirational class. This new elite cements its status through prizing knowledge and building cultural capital, not to mention the spending habits that go with it—preferring to spend on services, education and human-capital investments over purely material goods. These new status behaviours can be called "inconspicuous consumption".