>What if it costs $3,000 ? This what the average pair of shoes from
>Gucci or Versace costs these days. I wonder how Doug Henwood missed
>this little detail in gauging the social cost of luxury goods
>prodution.(Unless he was being densely ironic).
My god. Gucci's don't go for $3,000 - that's 5-10 times too high <http://www.gucci.com/us/us-english/us/spring-summer-05/womens-shoes/view_all_pumps.shtml>. In any case, I'm aware of how much stuff costs. My office is in Soho, and I'm here almost every day, surrounded by luxury goods, in boutiques and on people. Yeah, sure, there's conspicuous consumption going on, at highly inflated prices. But the stuff is still beautiful - why deny that? Why shouldn't socialists and their ideological kin want beautiful things for everyone, and not just the rich? Why not beautiful buildings, streets, cities? Why always the moralizing about pricetags?
Doug