Abstract: To some extent, the history of human beings is the history of consumption. Although being an important social fact, consumption had long been ignored by sociologists until the mid and late 19th century. In the Theory of the Leisure Class, Veblen gave a preliminary analysis of the consuming behaviors of the new American nouveaux riches, from which the perpetual sociological term of “conspicuous consumption” was born. In this paper, the author first presented a brief introduction to Veblen’s thoughts on conspicuous consumption. Then, the author gave a systematic review of the literature on conspicuous consumption from the productionist perspective and consumerist perspective, respectively. Finally, the author critiqued the limitations in the previous research and recommended indigenous research on conspicuous consumption.

Key words: conspicuous consumption, productionism, consumerism, review