Ostentation-Value and Positional-Value

Status is relative, i. e. a position with respect to others.  So, often entailed in Ostentation-Value is what is sometimes characterized as Positional-Value.  In such cases, the prestige that the possession of something evokes can easily degenerate into envy, and, indeed, envy, not admiration or approval, is sometimes what the conspicuous consumer deliberately seeks.  The object of envy thus has negative Positional-Value, thereby complicating a reduction of Positional-Value to Utility.  For, positive Positional-Value and negative Positional-Value are complementary in these cases, and, hence, are interdependent, which violates the Atomism of traditional Utilitarianism.