It was 110 years ago that Thorstein Veblen wrote The Theory of the Leisure Class, and coined the term "conspicuous consumption." I was reminded of Veblen when I read an article in the Wall Street Journal, September 25) -- its front page "human interest" story about wealthy Indians' weddings. (Ironic coincidence: today is Mahatma Gandhi's birthday).
Wealthy Indians are having weddings in places like Macau and Bangkok. One wedding described in the article cost $4 million. For comparison, India's rural poverty line is about $8 a month for consumption expenditure. So the wedding could have sustained 500,000 poor rural Indians for one month.
The family mostly featured in the article are Jains, strict vegetarians. So they flew out their own team of chefs and assistants to Macau, and they sterilized the hotel kitchen.
Since they could not import an elephant, they had to rent a local horse for $5,000 for the groom to ride on. A white vintage sports car was rented from Hong Kong and brought over for the procession -- cost $10,000.
Sort of gives economic progress and business a bad name in a country that is striving for democratic growth.
