the effectual economic value of their traffic. And along with the
make-believe of purposeful employment, and woven inextricably
into its texture, there is commonly, if not invariably, a more or
less appreciable element of purposeful effort directed to some
serious end.

In the narrower sphere of vicarious leisure a similar change has
gone forward. Instead of simply passing her time in visible
idleness, as in the best days of the patriarchal regime, the
housewife of the advanced peaceable stage applies herself
assiduously to household cares. The salient features of this
development of domestic service have already been indicated.
Throughout the entire evolution of conspicuous expenditure,
whether of goods or of services or human life, runs the obvious
implication that in order to effectually mend the consumer's good
fame it must be an expenditure of superfluities. In order to be
reputable it must be wasteful. No merit would accrue from the
consumption of the bare necessaries of life, except by comparison
with the abjectly poor who fall short even of the subsistence
minimum; and no standard of expenditure could result from such a
comparison, except the most prosaic and unattractive level of
decency. A standard of life would still be possible which should
admit of invidious comparison in other respects than that of
opulence; as, for instance, a comparison in various directions in
the manifestation of moral, physical, intellectual, or aesthetic
force. Comparison in all these directions is in vogue today; and
the comparison made in these respects is commonly so inextricably
bound up with the pecuniary comparison as to be scarcely
distinguishable from the latter. This is especially true as
regards the current rating of expressions of intellectual and