Source: Brownstone Institute
by Jeffrey A Tucker
“In high school in West Texas in the late 1970s, psych meds were Veblen goods; that is, products desired as markers of status. They were conspicuously consumed by the children of the well-to-do with profound awareness that their schoolmates could afford neither the treatment nor the supposed cure. … in the decades since, this Veblen good went the way of all luxury purchases over time. It became mainstream. Psych meds are now common among adults and children. It’s a massive industry: like cell phones and TVs generations ago, they migrated through the class structure year by year. Now comes Unshrunk by Laura Delano, a book that could change everything. If it were not an autobiography, it would make great fiction of the gothic sort popular in the Victorian period.” (04/22/25)
https://brownstone.org/articles/psych-meds-and-veblen-goods/