Paul Henry Nystrom (January 25, 1878 – August 17, 1969)[1] was an American economist, and professor of marketing at Columbia University.

[6] Nystrom is frequently associated with the philosophy of futility, a phrase which he coined in his 1928 book Economics of Fashion to describe the disposition caused by the monotony of the new industrial age.

Nystrom It refers solely to the processes of carrying and exchanging material goods, and, used in that sense, is but a part or a phase of what economic treatises call 'production.'

Nystrom presented the following series of charts "to give a clear idea of the customary channels of distribution in the main lines of trade passing from the producer to the consumer through retail stores.

Taken collectively, this major body of analytical commentary and anecdotal opinion describes fashion as a complex, diffuse, often perplexing, highly visible characteristic of civilizations.

Carolyn Mair (2014) added, that Nystrom in his 1931 work had "argued that the industrial revolution had induced a ‘philosophy of futility’ that would increase the consumption of goods and services as an activity for its own sake.