re: Conspicuous Consumption, Casualty of Recession
The New Frugality: No Passing Fad
I was glad to see it reported in the Times over the last few days that our bacchanalian days of unchecked hedonism and conspicuous consumption are over with. Yes, it’s true: consumption for consumption’s sake is dead. Were “Sex and the City” still around, I’m sure there would be an episode where Carrie feels bad about her shoe-purchasing addiction and tries to auction off her Manolos on EBay, only to find she’s unable to part with that one pair she was wearing the first time she met Mr. Big. Then she’d write something in her fake column like, “It might not be fashionable to have fifty thousand dollars worth of strappy heels these days, but in my heart of hearts, this new era of frugality will always leave some Big shoes to fill.”
You see, I’m all for frugality. And it’s cool that socialites like Sacha Taylor of Atlanta are pulling out ten-year-old dresses for their charity events. And that corporate lawyers are suddenly “clipping coupons.” Or that Ethel Knox gives away her car to a needy friend because “I just feel so decadent with all the stuff I’ve got.”
Why it took the country’s economy to tank for people to realize that a constant need to buy bigger and better goods and services is decadent, I’m not sure. It’s kind of like when the jocks in school suddenly all started listening to Pearl Jam three years after you first heard Ten. Or when your girlfriend’s mom shows up at the dive bar you’ve been going to forever because their karaoke night was featured in the alternative weekly, turning the Pabst-and-a-whiskey joint into the hottest spot in town.
My only worry is that like the trends mentioned above, this frugality is merely a fad that will hardly outlast any other, be it stretch Hummer limos or Tickle Me Elmos.
It’s interesting that the article on consumption featured quotes almost exclusively from women, as if they are the only consumers that really matter. Now, I’d hate to say that the sort of people quoted are capricious, but… Actually, I don’t hate it at all. Socialites and such are incredibly capricious. Wearing a ten-year-old dress is just as much a fashion fad as wearing a brand new one to every even was a year ago. As soon as they’re tired of making their patriotic show and assuming they haven’t been utterly ruined by that point, the ancient American practice of showing one’s superiority through displays of wealth will once again return. Perhaps not to the degree we’ve witnessed over the past decade, but it will certainly be back.
You might be saying to yourself right now, “Why is this guy being so negative? Can’t he just accept that these ladies are doing something good?” Well, I’d like to believe that the changes described are going to be lasting, but the fact of the matter is that they probably won’t be. Just as conspicuous consumption was the fashion last year, so conspicuous generosity and frugality is so this year. And just as wearing twenty-thousand-dollar fur coats was all the rage in Chicago last season, so giving away ten-thousand-dollar used cars is this season. And as soon as these fine ladies get tired of giving instead of getting, which is as inevitable as a junky turning back to the needle, things will be essentially the same as they were before, albeit perhaps not as over-the-top as the decadence we’ve witnessed in the past decade.
And I don’t really care that much about the whims of society ladies when it comes down to it. What I do care about is that we not be deterred from the most important mission facing us today: not necessarily to get the Dow Jones booming again, but to get Sam Jones out of debt and with a roof over his head. Not to save the shareholders of Citigroup, but to save the infrastructure of our cities from crumbling beyond repair. Not to ensure the economic health of our insurance giants, but to ensure that every American citizen has adequate health care.
For all those who deny that their is any class war in this country, you are wrong. It’s just that this war has been fought mostly by one side, while the other was blind and had one hand tied behind its back. It is not always the case that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” When one side of the lake is walled off by an enormous dam harboring ninety percent of the water, then a rising tide doesn’t do the other side much good at all. If we don’t escape this depression (and it’s questionable if we ever will) without largely eliminating poverty and homelessness in this country, then our efforts can be considered a failure. Because the yachts will be fine; they’ve risen far enough. It’s time to even out the waters to some vaguely reasonable degree.
