PLUQUET, François-André-Adrien.

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Traité Philosophique Et Politique Sur Le Luxe. First edition of this impassioned critique of consumerism, a key example of the shifting attitudes towards luxury in the decades before the French Revolution. Well before the Industrial Revolution, the long 18th century experienced a remarkable upsurge in the production, consumption, and circulation of material goods across western Europe. The resulting affluence led to fierce debate over its social implications, with such figures as Hume, Voltaire, and Mandeville viewing it as a key marker of social progress. By contrast, the Abbé Pluquet (1716-1790), a Parisian scholar and enemy of the philosophes, firmly associates luxury with social and religious catastrophe. Interpreting consumption as an unbridled release of humanity's ephemeral, rapacious instincts, he directly links consumer materialism with spiritual materialism.

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