veblen's main argument concerned what he called "leisure class", and it explicates the mechanism between taste, acquisition and consumption. he took his thesis of taste as an economic factor and merged it with the neoclassical hypothesis of nonsatiety, which states that no man can ever be satisfied with his fortune. hence, those who can afford luxuries are bound to be in a better social situation than others, because acquisition of luxuries by definition grants a good social status. this creates a demand for certain leisure goods, that are not necessities, but that, because of the current taste of the most well off, become wanted commodities.