behavior was strongly influenced by conventional
institutions concerning social status. Such concepts
as pecuniary emulation, conspicuous leisure, and
conspicuous consumption described the behavior
of people to demonstrate economic success and
therefore status. While Veblen recognized that cer-
tain occupations had superior status, he did not
preceive that status of production activities in gen-
eral could influence production decisions. For this
paper, Veblen’s concepts are broadened to include
conspicuous production, defined as production ac-
tivities associated with improvement of social status
rather than maximizing or stabilizing income.3
The existence of conspicuous production of beef
cows can be based on an historical relationship
between beef cattle production and other attributes
of social status in agricultural social systems. As
with many social institutions, this association was
largely based on previous technological and eco-
nomic conditions. For purposes of understanding
current beef production levels, the past imputation
of status to the beef cow enterprise could still exist,
even though modern production practices and op-
portunities have greatly altered. This proposition is
in full accord with Veblen’s analysis. His position
is that “Institutions are products of the past pro-
cess, are adapted to past circumstances, and are
therefore never in full accord with requirements of
the present” [22, p. 1331. Therefore, past patterns
of beef cattle productions would suggest the current
existence of conspicuous production.
The plausibility of status from beef cattle pro-
duction can be readily documented with historical
writings and data. According to Zimmermann, com-
mercial beef cattle production in the United States
began as a range or ranch enterprise with exten-
sive land utilization for grazing purposes and large
land holdings per firm. In part, this size was a
result of achieving sufficient scale to earn an in-
come comparable with other agricultural enter-
prises. Initial concentration of beef in semi-arid
or arid climates further increased the land size re-
quired to earn opportunity costs for nonland re-
sources [24, pp. 291-305]. As the frontier closed,
competition for range land with crop enterprises
resulted in a large capital investment per unit—
Ely and Wehrwein stated in 1940 that “A ranch . . .
involves a larger investment than a farm . . .” [5,
p. 235]. Thus, early beef cow units were associated
with larger land acreages and capital investments
than agricultural units in the East.
Early beef cow enterprises on general farms in
Georgia were also associated with large land units.
Using 1910 county data for Georgia, the Spearman
rank correlation between number of beef cows per
acre of land in farms and percentage of farms
larger than 260 acres is 0.474. In part, this associa-
tion reflects the same resource allocation process
that resulted in Western Specalization in beef—the
rank correlation between cows per acre and per-
centage of unimproved land in farms is 0.731.4
However, it is likely that beef cows were concen-
trated on larger farms within each county in addi-
tion to being concentrated in counties with a higher
percentage of unimproved land. Data in Table 1
demonstrate the 1950 concentration of beef cattle
on farms with larger gross sales as compared with
dairy cows and swine. The percentage of beef cows
on Class I-III farms was higher than that of milk
cows and swine on Class I-III farms and lower on
the Class IV-VI farms.
Thus, both national and state production of
beef cows have been associated with large agricul-
tural units. Historical imputation of status to beef
cow herds is therefore quite plausible, considering
size and income levels are standard rural indicators
of status. Given the recent existence of this pattern,
farmers today would be expected to be conspicu-
ously producing beef cows,
AN ECONOMIC MODEL
OF CONSPICUOUS PRODUCTION
The impact of conspicuous production on farm
organization can be analyzed with an adaptation
of the standard neoclassical model of the firm.
To allow preferences for particular enterprises, a
utility function is maximized subject to a produc-
tion function and a profit function:
(1) Maximize U = U (Xi, ττ)
subject to F(Xι, X<2, ... X») = 0
and π = ɪ Pj Xj
where π is profit
Xj are inputs and outputs
P, are prices
and Xi is the level of an enterprise sub-
ject to conspicous production.
ɜ Examples of conspicuous production are recognized in the literature. Heady identified farm ownership as related to this
objective (8, p. 430). Rogers suggests that purchase of “new farm machinery and show-place farm buildings” may serve as
status symbols (15, p. 122).
4 Both correlations are significant at the 1% level. The data for these calculations were obtained from the 1910 Census of
Population 1191. To facilitate computations, the data were aggregated into groups with the first group including the five
counties with the greatest number of beef cows per acre, the second group the next five, etc.
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