All that capitalism, or rather the liberal society that allows capitalism to flourish, does, is to give mimetic phenomena a freer rein and to direct them into economic and technological channels… capitalism is capable of doing away with the restraints that archaic societies placed upon mimetic rivalry.
We have the impression that if it were possible some cultures would dispense with individual choice entirely and so entirely eliminate the possibility of mimetic rivalry. In contemporary society, the exact opposite increasingly takes place. No more taboos forbid one person to take what is reserved for another, and no more initiation rites prepare individuals in common, for the necessary trials of life… Instead, modern education thinks it is able to resolve every problem by glorifying the natural spontaneity of desire, which is a purely mythological notion.
The value of an object grows in proportion to the resistance met w