Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/157792 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Citation: 
[Journal:] Millennium: Journal of International Studies [Volume:] 43 [Issue:] 2 [Publisher:] The Bichler and Nitzan Archives [Place:] Toronto [Year:] 2015 [Pages:] 492-510
Publisher: 
The Bichler and Nitzan Archives, Toronto
Abstract: 
This article offers a study on the plutonomy of dominant owners and what their consumptive practices might tell us from the lens of the capital as power framework in IPE. I argue that the differential consumption of dominant owners is an important dimension of an internationalised capitalist mode of power for two reasons. First, Nitzan and Bichler argue that the primary driver of accumulation is the desire for differential power symbolically expressed in a magnitude of money. In this article, I argue that there is a secondary dimension noted but underdeveloped in their framework and influenced by Veblen: the drive for social status and the display of positionality through differential intraclass consumption. Second, as identified by Kempf, I argue that the consumptive practices of dominant owners are helping to lock global society into an unsustainable and ethically indefensible quest for perpetual economic growth. This growth project not only undermines calls for needed social and economic change but also threatens populations with environmental collapse.
Subjects: 
1%
capital
consumption
dominant owners
IPE
New Gilded Age
plutonomy
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
URL of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
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Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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