Description
In his classic book ‘Theory of the Leisure Class’, the eminent economic sociologist Thorstein Veblen criticised the excesses of the Gilded Age in America. His specific targets were the conspicuous consumption and waste by the richest class in society. Even though Veblen’s scathing critique was presented more than a century ago, it remains salient. Nowhere is this perhaps more evident than in the growing global climate change crisis. Initially framed as an environmental issue decades ago, contemporary debates present global climate change as a strategic and existential threat to humanity. Calls to address the issue have taken on a war-like rhetoric, where normative considerations of such a response have been put aside. Drawing on Veblen's theory, this paper challenges this prevailing framing of the global climate change crisis. It does so by first developing a concept of the Climate Leisure Class, which has accelerated the climate change crisis through conspicuous consumption and waste. The main argument of the paper is that the global climate change crisis can only be effectively and equitable solved through the Climate Leisure Class taking up their fair share of responsibility by cutting back on conspicuous carbon consumption and waste. The critique transcends the Global North/South divide in its definition of the Climate Leisure Class. In conclusion, the paper warns against the temptations of the Climate Leisure Class to leverage potent policy tools such as carbon tariffs and penalties, especially against vulnerable societies who have contributed the least to the problem. Theoretically, the paper emphasizes the need to critically re-examine the assumption of an international society marked by homogeneity, especially in the framing of global challenges.
