It's easy to imagine the sense of anticipation as the plutocrats go bank balance to bank balance to show who can carry off the first limited-edition Rivas. The thrill of a good adversarial auction cannot be overestimated. One London dealer of Russian antiques and artworks told me that he puts his most important pieces up for auction, since Russian collectors find bidding against each other a big part of the fun.

Such over-the-top competition can be traced back to ancient Rome, which invoked sumptuary laws to tame the excess. Over time, such laws have restricted everything from the way togas were made to which fish could be eaten. But historically those rules were often used to keep the lower classes in their place rather than to rein in the excesses of the elite.

Besides, the rich are an inventive bunch, and were there any attempts to restrict their spending, they would soon figure out how to circumvent them. Indeed, one of the great joys of being really rich is devising new ways in which to communicate one's success. My favorite example of one-upmanship among the plutocracy comes from 19th-century New York. In 1864, George Templeton Strong noted in his diary that department-store magnate A. T. Stewart had purchased a Fifth Avenue brownstone and decided to demolish it in favor of erecting a white marble palace. "I suppose it will be just ten times as ugly and barbaric as its predecessor," huffed Strong.

However, Stewart had the last laugh. His New York palazzo initiated a frenzy of competitive mansion-building among the late-19th- and early-20th-century rich, who chose to display their fortunes by cramming diverse architectural styles (Renaissance, medieval, any number of Louis, Moorish, you name it) into vast houses along Fifth Avenue and in the resort of Newport. One such Gilded Age hostess, inordinately proud of her "medieval" fortress, was once heard to remark of the Duke of Atholl's 13th-century house, Blair Castle: "It's not correct. There are a lot of mistakes. My castle at Sandy Point is far more authentic!" Fortunately, the competitive foibles of one generation's billionaires are often eclipsed by those of the next.

© 2008