这是凡勃伦《有闲阶级论 ：关于制度的经济研究》第六章中的一些精彩片段。
文献来源：
Veblen, T. 1899. The theory of the leisure class: an economic study in the evolution of institutions. New York : Macmillan.
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在炫耀性浪费法则（law of conspicuous waste）的选择性监督（selective surveillance）下，逐渐形成了一套公认的消费准则（accredited canons of consumption），其效果是使消费者在商品消费（consumption of goods）以及时间和精力的使用（employment of time and effort）上，都要达到一种昂贵和浪费的标准（standard of expensiveness and wastefulness）。
Under the selective surveillance of the law of conspicuous waste there grows up a code of accredited canons of consumption, the effect of which is to hold the consumer up to a standard of expensiveness and wastefulness in his consumption of goods and in his employment of time and effort. （Veblen，1899：116）
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炫耀性浪费原则（principle of conspicuous waste）引导着关于生活与商品中何者为正当（honest）和体面（reputable）的思想习惯（habits of thought）的形成。
在此过程中，这一原则将会介入其他一些行为规范（norms of conduct），这些规范主要并不涉及金钱荣誉准则（code of pecuniary honour），但却直接或附带地具有某种相当程度的经济意义（economic significance）。
因此，荣誉性浪费准则（canon of honorific waste）可能直接或间接地影响责任感（sense of duty）、美感（sense of beauty）、效用感（sense of utility）、虔诚或仪式上的合宜感（sense of devotional or ritualistic fitness），以及科学的真理感（scientific sense of truth）。
The principle of conspicuous waste guides the formation of habits of thought as to what is honest and reputable in life and in commodities. In so doing, this principle will traverse other norms of conduct which do not primarily have to do with the code of pecuniary honour, but which have, directly or incidentally, an economic significance of some magnitude. So the canon of honorific waste may, immediately or remotely, influence the sense of duty, the sense of beauty, the sense of utility, the sense of devotional or ritualistic fitness, and the scientific sense of truth. （Veblen，1899：116）
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这个话题在这里无需进一步展开；但可以顺带指出，围绕不可侵犯的所有权（inviolable ownership）这一概念而聚集起来的那一大批道德规范（morals），其本身就是财富的传统功绩性（traditional meritoriousness of wealth）的一种心理沉淀物（psychological precipitate）。
并且还应补充说，这种被视为神圣的财富，其价值主要在于通过炫耀性消费（conspicuous consumption）所能获得的良好声誉（good repute）。
This topic need scarcely be pursued farther here; but the remark may not be out of place that all that considerable body of morals that clusters about the concept of an inviolable ownership is itself a psy- chological precipitate of the traditional meritoriousness of wealth. And it should be added that this wealth which is held sacred is valued primarily for the sake of the good repute to be got through its con- spicuous consumption.（Veblen，1899：118）
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前面关于炫耀性浪费法则（law of conspicuous waste）对品味准则（canons of taste）之影响的论述，只需对术语稍作改动，便同样适用于它对我们在审美目的之外的商品适用性（serviceability）观念的影响。
商品是作为更充分展开人类生活的手段而被生产和消费的；其效用首先在于它作为达到这一目的之手段的效率（efficiency）。
这一目的首先在于绝对意义上的个人生活的充实。
但是，人类的竞赛倾向（proclivity to emulation）已经把商品消费当作一种进行歧视性对比（invidious comparison）的手段，并由此赋予消费品一种次要效用（a secondary utility），即作为相对支付能力（relative ability to pay）的证明。
消费品的这种间接或次要用途，使消费具有了荣誉性（honorific character），并进而使那些最能服务于这种消费的竞赛目的（emulative end）的商品也具有了荣誉性。
昂贵商品的消费是值得称许的（meritorious），而那些包含着明显超出其表面机械目的（ostensible mechanical purpose）所需适用性（serviceability）的成本成分的商品，则是荣誉性的（honorific）。
因此，商品上多余昂贵（superfluous costliness）的标记，便是价值（worth）的标志——即对于其消费所要服务的间接的（indirect）、歧视性目的（invidious end）具有高效率（high efficiency)的标志；反之，如果商品对所要达到的机械目的（mechanical end）表现得过于节俭地适应（too thrifty an adaptation），并且没有留出一定余量的昂贵性（a margin of expensiveness）来支撑一种自满的歧视性对比（a complacent invidious comparison），那么这些商品就是耻辱性的（humilific），因而没有吸引力（unattractive）。
这种间接效用（indirect utility）构成了“较优”等级商品（“better” grades of goods）的很大一部分价值（value）。
为了迎合有教养的效用感（the cultivated sense of utility），一件物品必须含有少量的这种间接效用。
What has been said of the influence of the law of conspicuous waste upon the canons of taste will hold true, with but a slight change of terms, of its influence upon our notions of the serviceability of goods for other ends than the æsthetic one. Goods are produced and con- sumed as a means to the fuller unfolding of human life; and their utility consists, in the first instance, in their efficiency as means to this end. The end is, in the first instance, the fullness of life of the individual, taken in absolute terms. But the human proclivity to emulation has seized upon the consumption of goods as a means to an invidious comparison, and has thereby invested consumable goods with a secondary utility as evidence of relative ability to pay. This indirect or secondary use of consumable goods lends an honorific character to consumption, and presently also to the goods which best serve this emulative end of consumption. The consumption of expensive goods is meritorious, and the goods which contain an appreciable element of cost in excess of what goes to give them ser- viceability for their ostensible mechanical purpose are honorific. The marks of superfluous costliness in the goods are therefore marks of worth—of high efficiency for the indirect, invidious end to be served by their consumption; and conversely, goods are humilific, and therefore unattractive, if they show too thrifty an adaptation to the mechanical end sought and do not include a margin of expensiveness on which to rest a complacent invidious comparison. This indirect utility gives much of their value to the “better” grades of goods. In order to appeal to the cultivated sense of utility, an article must contain a modicum of this indirect utility. （Veblen，1899：154-155）
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在商品中寻找多余昂贵标记（marks of superfluous expensiveness）的习惯，以及要求所有商品都应提供某种间接的或歧视性的效用（utility of the indirect or invidious sort）的习惯，导致衡量商品效用的标准发生了变化。
在消费者对商品的评价（appreciation）中，荣誉性元素（honorific element）与纯粹效率元素（the element of brute efficiency）并未被区分开来，二者共同构成了商品未经分析的总体适用性（the unanalyzed aggregate serviceability）。
在这种由此产生的适用性标准（standard of serviceability）下，任何物品仅凭物质上的充分性（material sufficiency）都不会被认可。
为了达到完整性并获得消费者的完全接受，它还必须显示出荣誉性元素（ the honorific element）。
结果是，消费品生产者将其努力引向生产能够满足这种对荣誉性元素需求的商品。
他们会更加积极有效地这样做，因为他们自己就处于同样的商品价值标准（standard of worth in goods）的支配（dominance）之下，并且看到缺乏适当荣誉性修饰（honorific finish）的商品时会由衷地感到惋惜（sincerely grieved）。
因此，如今任何行业中供应的商品都或多或少地包含着荣誉性元素。
The habit of looking for the marks of superfluous expensiveness in goods, and of requiring that all goods should afford some utility of the indirect or invidious sort, leads to a change in the standards by which the utility of goods is gauged. The honorific element and the element of brute efficiency are not held apart in the consumer’s appreciation of commodities, and the two together go to make up the unanalyzed aggregate serviceability of the goods. Under the resulting standard of serviceability, no article will pass muster on the strength of material sufficiency alone. In order to completeness and full accept- ability to the consumer it must also show the honorific element. It results that the producers of articles of consumption direct their efforts to the production of goods that shall meet this demand for the honorific element. They will do this with all the more alacrity and effect, since they are themselves under the dominance of the same standard of worth in goods, and would be sincerely grieved at the sight of goods which lack the proper honorific finish. Hence it has come about that there are to-day no goods supplied in any trade which do not contain the honorific element in greater or less degree. （Veblen，1899：156-157）
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正如已经指出的那样，现代工业社会中廉价（cheap）、因而不得体（indecorous）的日常消费品通常是机器制品（machine products）；
与手工制品（hand-wrought article）相比，机器制成品外观的一般特征在于其工艺上更高的完美性（perfection in workmanship）和设计细节执行上更高的精确性。
因此，手工制品上那些可见的瑕疵（visible imperfections），由于具有荣誉性（honorific），就被视为在美观（beauty）、适用性（serviceability）或两者方面具有优越性的标志。
As has already been pointed out, the cheap, and therefore indecor- ous, articles of daily consumption in modern industrial communities are commonly machine products; and the generic feature of the physiognomy of machine-made goods as compared with the hand-wrought article is their greater perfection in workmanship and greater accuracy in the detail execution of the design. Hence it comes about that the visible imperfections of the hand-wrought goods, being honorific, are accounted marks of superiority in point of beauty, or serviceability, or both. （Veblen，1899：161-162）
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机器产品（machine products）在文明消费体系（civilised scheme of consumption）中的地位，有助于揭示炫耀性浪费准则（canon of conspicuous waste）与消费礼仪规范（code of proprieties in consumption）之间所存在的关系的性质。
无论是在严格意义上的艺术（art）与品味（taste）问题上，还是在关于商品适用性（serviceability）的当前观念上，这一准则都不作为创新或主动（innovation or initiative）的原则而发挥作用。
它并不作为一种创造性原则（a creative principle）走向未来，去做出创新（innovations）并增添新的消费项目和新的成本要素。
在某种意义上，所讨论的这一原则与其说是一条积极法则（a positive law），不如说是一条消极法则（a negative）。
它是一种调节性原则（a regulative principle），而非创造性原则（a creative principle）。
它极少直接发起或产生任何习惯或习俗（usage or custom）。
其作用（action）仅仅是选择性的（selective only）。
炫耀性浪费（conspicuous wastefulness）并不直接为变化（variation）和增长（growth）提供基础，但符合其要求（conformity to its requirements） 是那些可能基于其他理由而做出的创新得以存续（survival）的条件（condition）。
无论消费习惯（usages）、习俗（customs）和支出方式（methods of expenditure）以何种方式产生，它们都受制于这一体面规范（norm of reputability）的选择性作用（ selective action）；它们符合（conform）其要求的程度，是检验它们在与其它类似习惯和习俗的竞争中是否适于存续（fitness to survive）的标准。
在其他条件相同的情况下，越是明显浪费（obviously wasteful） 的习惯或方法，在这一法则下存续的机会就越大。
炫耀性浪费法则（law of conspicuous waste）并不解释变化的起源（the origin of variations），而只解释那些在其支配（dominance）下适合存续（fit to survive ）的形式（forms）何以持续存在（persistence）。
它的作用是保存适者（conserve the fit），而非创造出可接受者（originate the acceptable）。
它的职责（office）是检验一切事物（prove all things），并保留/牢牢把握住那些对其目的有利的东西（ hold fast that which is good for its purpose）。
The position of machine products in the civilised scheme of consumption serves to point out the nature of the relation which subsists between the canon of conspicuous waste and the code of proprieties in consumption. Neither in matters of art and taste proper, nor as regards the current sense of the serviceability of goods, does this canon act as a principle of innovation or initiative. It does not go into the future as a creative principle which makes innovations and adds new items of consumption and new elements of cost. The principle in question is, in a certain sense, a negative rather than a positive law. It is a regulative rather than a creative principle. It very rarely initiates or originates any usage or custom directly. Its action is selective only. Conspicuous wastefulness does not directly afford ground for variation and growth, but conformity to its requirements is a condi- tion to the survival of such innovations as may be made on other grounds. In whatever way usages and customs and methods of expenditure arise, they are all subject to the selective action of this norm of reputability; and the degree in which they conform to its requirements is a test of their fitness to survive in the competition with other similar usages and customs. Other things being equal, the more obviously wasteful usage or method stands the better chance of survival under this law. The law of conspicuous waste does not account for the origin of variations, but only for the persistence of such forms as are fit to survive under its dominance. It acts to con- serve the fit, not to originate the acceptable. Its office is to prove all things and to hold fast that which is good for its purpose. （Veblen，1899：165-166）