LOADSAMONEY! Call it “bling”, call it conspicuous consumption, call it keeping up with the Joneses.
The acquisitiveness, aspirational drive and social climbing epitomised by ghastly characters from Margo Leadbetter in the Seventies to Gordon Gekko in the Eighties to Hyacinth Bucket in the Nineties are traits that are basic elements in all human characters — even if they are more obvious in some people than in others.
Human beings are socially competitive creatures who have clung to the acquisitive urges of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Like Oliver Twist, we all want more, and for most there is rarely if ever such a thing as quite enough.
The appetites and desires of the tiny minority in the billionaire class may be more specialised, more unusual, and certainly more expensive than those of the majority. But in making the most of their huge spending power, the super-rich are merely mirroring on a grand scale the behaviour of those with more modest means, pursuing an elusive quest for fulfilment and contentment.
What drives these urges to acquire, the unrelenting impulse to carry on spending? In the Fifties Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, came up with a “hierarchy of needs”, from the most pressing to the much less urgent. His idea was that, in general, people would try to satisfy the most basic requirements first before devoting energy to others.
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The most fundamental human needs, labelled as physiological, are our requirements for food and drink to sustain ourselves. These are followed by safety needs, such as shelter and security; social needs such as friendship, love and sex; and the need for esteem and status. At the top of the pyramid is the need for what Maslow called “self-actualisation” — the drive to fully realise our potential as human beings. For most of us, as we grow wealthier and fulfil each set of needs, climbing Maslow’s pyramid, we will devote more time, energy and money to the next set of goals.
So, in rich societies such as Britain, where most have satisfied all of the more basic needs, there is plenty of scope, and cash, to lavish on less vital goals. Maslow seems to have got it right with a theory that would predict comfortably-off consumers splurging on products that might help win them greater esteem from friends, neighbours or colleagues, or seeking fulfilment and contentment from exploring the world, or learning new skills.
For the “masters of the universe” in the billionaire league, the drive to pursue satisfaction ought to be no less. Most would fancy a stint in the “billionaire boys’ club”, and the billionaires themselves are simply taking the human nature course that Maslow explained to the nth degree.