Think about money as the product of your labor. Unless you really love your job, this has a meaningful value that you can directly compare to the product you are purchasing. Assuming a middle-class income of $50,000 US/year after tax, a Porsche costs anywhere from 1 to 2 years of your labor. A Civic costs between 1/3 and 1/2 a year of labor. Both are reliable modes of transportation. The practical difference between the two products is largely inside the head of the purchaser. It is an expensive delusion.

Can anyone honestly tell me that a Porsche is worth 1.5 years of slogging it away at your job over and above the cost of a Civic? I can’t say I would be surprised if someone said yes, but surely the majority would say “no.”

So, you think the “experience” of Paris is incomparable, and others think the “experience” of Porche/bigTV is comparable. You’ve elevated one over another without any principled distinction. Of course this is an old argument, e.g. Mill (I think) on the higher vs. lower virtues.

One more point: I have a Honda and a 19″ TV. I can’t argue directly on 50″ back to 19″, but here are two examples that underscore my view that it’s hard to go back:
- having experienced broadband, going back to dialup is ACTIVELY PAINFUL, even though I used dialup for many years (e.g. using 14.4 on Compuserve, and 300 baud back in the dark ages)
- having used a fast new computer, it’s ACTIVELY PAINFUL to go back to a slow one … even though that was a refreshing speed bump from the one before it

I do know someone whose hobby is working on and racing old porches, it costs a lot of money, and it does make him happy, but that is more because he is continually learning about repairing and racing porches and meeting people with the same interests. In part, this just means pick the right interests for your income level.

In terms of nutrition IHOP and the best restaurant in France are practically identical. This is another egalitarian triumph of the market. I was talking about the overall experience (including ambience, service, etc.), as opposed to just a source of calories.

Scott, If you used to have a 50″ and move back to a 19″, you’ll be briefly annoyed, but 19″ will quickly seem normal and perfectly satisfactory again. Adaptation need not be a one-way upward ratchet.

I also disagree that people stop benefitting from the larger TV. Sure, it becomes the new normal, but if you want to see whether they appreciate it, try to get them to trade down to the old 19″. NO WAY. (By the same token, I’ll bet those who can afford the ultra dining experience all the time lose the same novelty effect. The examples are quite interchangeable.)

This is obviously a value judgment. Allow me to state the obvious equivalent: “A meal at the IHOP is functionally identical to an exquisite meal at the best restaurant in Paris.” Both are grotesquely wrong for my personal value system. The subjective qualifier “exquisite” certainly appears in discussions of driving fine sports cars.

To suggest that value systems which differ from your own (dining > driving) are “trivial” is naked righteousness. The entire market egalitarianism assertion is spurious because it can be inverted and applied to any source of joy.

The adaptation assertion I think is obviously dismissable both for requiring a very ambitious set of assumptions and for its broader implication.

But of course any counter-argument can be haughtily dismissed as cognitive dissonance for some big purchase which brought no happiness. “I guess you folks who paid through the nose for your trip to Paris are very proud. Fair enough.”

Second, you provide a great example of my point. I happen to drive a 1996 Civic, which I bought for $6000 several years ago. It is functionally identical to a Porsche in the sense that it conveys me to any location to which I wish to go at a speed within the boundaries of law in comfort. I have driven for more than 10 hours in a day in it, without any particular discomfort. It has air conditioning, a good stereo, is extremely reliable, and costs almost nothing to service. Etc. etc. A low-end Porsche costs about 10X as much, and does almost nothing that a Civic doesn’t do. I understand that the difference between the two are important for those who have a special interest in automotive performance and luxury, or in signaling social status. But without a concern for those, the Civic and the Porsche are essentially the same machine sold for vastly different prices.

There is a substantial and obvious difference between buying a Porsche and buying a Honda Civic. If money is no object and won’t be in the future, then as a car guy I’d choose the Porsche. Having driven both, the comfort and nature of the Porsche was far greater than that of the Civic.

If money’s no object, give me the more expensive car.

(It should be noted that this is not always the case, but I believe a general relationship trend can be drawn between similar goods of different price ranges.)

You’re right that as you get into the expensive range of experiences, the marginal improvement in quality with added cost diminishes sharply. Really super expensive stuff is usually positional dickwaving.

Thanks for bringing up suits! I have a decent eye, and can often spot a genuine bespoke saville row-quality suit. But once you get to off-the-rack, quality differences really are almost indiscernible, until you get to truly cheap cheap cheap in terms of materials and construction. I bought my favorite suit for $180 off overstock.com. If I told you I paid $800, no non-fashionista would know the difference. (I think it retailed at $600 before getting remaindered to overstock.) There is a whole Style channel genre about creating an astronomically expensive designer “look” for a budget of $100. Sometimes it can’t be done. But sometimes they nail it. That this is possible is an egalitarian triumph.