Conspicuous Leisure

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]The elite are amazing at wasting time, and they won't be shy about letting you know just how good at it they are. In a previous video, I broke down the three ways distance from economic necessity gets demonstrated by the wealthy from the work of American sociologist Thorstein Veblen. Today, we go deeper into one of them, the focus being conspicuous leisure, which is the idea that it's not enough to not work, but your leisure has to be demonstrated to others. That the leisure class won't stay idle without work, and instead will fill that time with activities that are one, technically demanding, meaning they require long cultivation. Two, functionally useless, meaning they don't produce anything tradeable. And three, socially legible. They're recognizable as high status by the relevant audience.

[00:00:38]But this got me thinking, what's going on here? What is it about wasting time that tells us so much about a person?

[00:00:44]So, I looked into it some more, and what I found was really interesting. I had never thought about it this way before.

[00:00:49]I think the best way to approach this is with an example. So, imagine a dinner in the West Village with a group of friends. Noemie mentions offhandedly that she spent most of April in Paris.

[00:00:58]Not for a particular reason, she just wanted to be there. To walk, to sit in a particular cafe she liked near the Jardin du Palais-Royal. To visit the Musée de l'Orangerie three times. "What were you doing there? Were you there for work?" someone asks. She pauses, slightly puzzled at how to answer this question. "No, I just wanted to be in Paris." The table absorbs this, and for half the table, it lands perfectly naturally. Of course, one goes to places simply to be in them. But for the other half, something small happens internally. A realization that their own trips are always organized around a function, be it a conference or a milestone birthday. Now Thomas speaks.

[00:01:32]He recently received a big bonus at work, and thus wanted to travel for 10 days to Japan last autumn. He describes the hotel and the Michelin star restaurants. He talks about efficiency with a kind of pride in the density of his itinerary. And he isn't boring, the trip sounds extraordinary by any measure. But there's an unconscious distinction happening around the table, and without cruelty on my side, Thomas is still in a functional relationship to travel. He went to Japan and got Japan.

[00:01:57]He moved through it with intention and returned with photos and recommendations. Whereas Noemie went to Paris and was simply in it. So, what just happened here? Why was Noemie's way of travel seen as more, even though she did less? Well, for starters, Thomas's trip was organized around function, and not in a crass way. But whether he was there for work or to take in the culture, function was the primary objective. To visit Kyoto, to try omakase. He went somewhere and returned with a yield. This is still the logic of labor. Veblen's point, made almost 130 years ago, was that the leisure class distinguishes itself not by how well they spent their time, but by their genuine freedom from the compulsion to justify it. Thomas is still justifying.

[00:02:36]The density of his itinerary is the justification. Whereas Noemie is not justifying, and she isn't even aware that she isn't. She isn't performing non-justification. She genuinely did not need Paris to produce anything. Now, there's still so much more nuance to get into in this conversation, and in a future video, I want to get deeper into the distinction that's going on here.

[00:02:55]So, if you want that, please like and follow, and let me know your thoughts in the comments.