>>9261065as far as jewelry i still see nothing wrong with it
people have a perceived value of things. people will pay money for that value, whether it's a drink at a bar or a pearl necklace. it's entirely a voluntary transaction of someone selling and someone buying
you can complain about diamonds or w/e having an artificial scarcity problem elevating their cost, but that leads to a bunch of different arguments - one of which being it's similar to telling farmers they can't alter their output at all because they'd be creating artificial scarcity, and that removes an economic freedom from them and destines them for less profit and thus being lower class, to say nothing of the implicit infringing on property rights
people buy plenty of stuff they don't "need" but most people only "need" basic food and shelter. everything else is extraneous to the purpose of simply living, but the perceived value of things is also part of people. there's plenty of other items like that we're not touching on: fine clothing, expensive real estate, nice furniture, etc. you get the same use out of something cheaper, but that doesn't change the perceived value of "better" things. you don't have to agree with the people's concept of "better" but that doesn't change things
the issue here is that it seems luxury or "unnecessary" items playing economics might appear to be "kikery" because it's taking advantage of people who feel a need for things they don't truly "need." without getting into a debate on what "need" means, i'll say this:
taking a purely pragmatic approach to everything is a death of culture: it's a hop and a skip away from saying it's stupid to pay for various forms of art because they aren't necessary to the purpose of life either. but life would lose a lot of meaning without the "unnecessary"
the only agreement we have here is i too would say most bars are too expensive for what they are offering these days. but that is why i don't go to most bars
