The Notion Of Luxury And What It Means To Us

The notion of luxury has changed over the years. Luxury brands carry a luxury experience. There is a new way of looking at luxury as a department store. Luxury has moved from a rare buy to a market with its own market values. The concept of luxury has been redefined in this new way. You can choose what you want to do, when you want to do it. This is the concept of luxury now.

You can choose to spend your money on clothes, cars or houses. You can even choose to spend your money on yourself. Luxury is a choice that you make, just like what you buy or how you live. This is why luxury must be made accessible to as many people as possible. You don't have to be rich to have a luxurious life.

Wanting To Make Luxury Accessible

As I said before, luxury is accessible to all, but this doesn't mean it's cheap. It just means, that it isn't as expensive as other things some people want. Some people want the newest thing. They want to have the newest phone or car. They want to go to the newest restaurant in the city.

These are the people, who spend all their money as they wish and they can afford to do it too. Other people want experiences. They want to go to a certain restaurant, concert or movie theater. This is the mass market that, drives the market. This is why things like hotels and airlines have to rely on these people.

Then there are the people, who don't really want anything. They're happy with what they have. These people don't spend money, or they spend very little. These people probably don't go to luxury stores, let alone luxury stores that sell items, that people only use once in a blue moon.

So in order to make luxury accessible, companies have to make it appealing to at least some of these people. This is why advertising is used. This is why the newest trends are pushed. This is why sales are held and deals are made. This is why luxury has to exist at all.

Luxury And Inequality

I can already see the comments now, but I'm not saying luxury is bad. Luxury is good, and it's necessary. The problem with luxury is that it tends to be very much skewed towards the rich, which then perpetuates a cycle of wealth and privilege.

Just because someone has the money to buy a $10 million car and drive it around doesn't automatically mean, they have $10 million to spend on a house or clothing or groceries or school or whatever else their regular expenses require. Meanwhile people, who work minimum wage jobs don't have enough money to live comfortably.

This cycle of poverty is what's causing today's problems. The environment is being destroyed. People are starving. Education is becoming a privilege of the elite, not a right. Healthcare? Forget about it. There's no public option or Medicare for all. This unfairness has to stop.

So yes, luxury is good. But only if it's accessible to everyone. And that's impossible. The way to do this is to have a system in place, that takes a cut of the profits from luxury goods and services. This way, companies don't have an incentive to exploit the poor and the middle class has an equal chance at getting the goods and services that the rich enjoy on a daily basis.

And if that sounds grim, well that's because it is. But there are steps that can be taken right now to start fixing this problem, and one of those steps is getting the word out.

I'm not going to sugarcoat this. This is going to be unpopular, but this is an issue that needs to be addressed and it's not going to be done through social media or in a candlelight vigil. This is going to involve taking some of the stuff that the world has to admittedly to give.

I realize, that not everyone can be a part of this. That's fine. But those who can should help. How? By buying luxury goods and using them. By going into debt to buy things you need. By working for the wealthy to pay them, so that they can afford to have more. By doing all of the things that the 1% do.

If we truly want equality, then we have to be willing to sacrifice some of what makes us comfortable to get it. I know that doesn't sound glamorous, but it's really the only way we're going to be able to effect real change.

The Decline Of A Luxury Economy

Think about it. In today's economy, why would a doctor spend $500 on a bottle of wine, when they can get a case of the same quality for less than $100 from a discount liquor store? It doesn't make economic sense for them to buy the better quality wine, even if it's just going to get drunk by themselves.

The rich are already doing things in a way that doesn't contribute to society. They're not going to start doing it, because of a luxury tax. Also they have so much already, what's one more tax to them? They're already going to be less likely to give to charity or do any sort of good works anyway.

The middle class is hurting enough as it is. They're barely getting by as it is. Raising prices on anything they buy is just going to make them sell their house and get a cheap apartment near work so they can still afford to live and still save what little money they have left. That's not going to help the economy in the long run.

So what does this mean for you and me? Well, for starters, it's going to be a little harder to buy some things. We're already stretched out as it is. Buying a brand new car isn't really something that's within our means, or at least not within the means of most of us anyway. The fact is, if we want luxury, we're going to have to make sacrifices. However, I don't believe that this means the end of the world. I actually don't.

Free Yourself From Desire And Make It Real

When you are at the point of wanting something, but not having enough to acquire it, then you aren't truly free. You are a slave to your desires and you don't want to be. We must free ourselves by any means. Not just the easy ones though.

Our rebellion against the system isn't going to be televised. Or at least not for a long time. It is going to be a silent one, with a few isolated acts of civil disobedience here and there, that are going to catch the attention of those in power. That is going to be the work of an underground.

But we are underground. We are a group of loosely affiliated individuals and organizations, that share a common goal of subverting the system that's enslaving us. We have no leader, we have no official documents, we have no spokespeople. We are underground, because if we were to appear on the surface, we would quickly be stomped out of existence.

There are quite a few of us, but we are still struggling to keep ourselves together and to keep out eventual destruction. The system is still very much focused on our elimination. They just need to make one mistake on our part and launch an attack, and they will find us.

We don't have that problem. We have plenty of opportunity to slip up and give them an advantage, but we are going to make those opportunities hard to come by. We have already been fortunate enough to gain the support of some people on the inside. Others are in and out. All of them are on side, because they see the need and the potential for change.