Saturday, May 2, 2009

The immorality of conspicuous consumption

From today's Toronto Star:

Earlier this week, First Lady Michelle Obama was photographed at a Washington-area food bank wearing sneakers. The fuss: They are $540 (U.S.) a pair, designed by the Paris house of Lanvin, one of the hottest – and most expensive – labels in the world.
I don't know if the First Lady received these sneakers as a gift or bought them. If she paid over $500 US for a pair of sneakers, I submit that her conduct was immoral.
In a world where something like 27,000 children die everyday from causes directly related to poverty and over one billion people manage to survive on an income of less than a dollar a day, conspicuous consumption is immoral. Conspicuous consumption is probably best defined as lavish spending on goods/services acquired primarily for the purpose of displaying wealth and thereby attaining/maintaining social status. Or I suppose you could simply define it as spending $500 US for a pair of sneakers because you are able to and desire to.
I believe that most applied ethicists (such as Peter Singer) would agree this view. However, libertarians such as Jan Narveson would likely argue that they have every right to spend what they earn on what they wish.
This isue has me thinking about what other consumer choices would satisfy the definition of immoral conspicuous consumption and here is my quick list of 10 (in no particular order):
  1. Buying bottled water when tap water is safe and accessible.
  2. Owning more vehicles than the number of adult drivers in your household. Quite frankly, many families that can afford two vehicles, could easily get by with one.
  3. Applying pesticides to your lawn. Thankfully, my city has recently outlawed this practice.
  4. Flying first class.
  5. Buying any item for which a premium is charged for the brand name and yet no corresponding proportional increase is quality is received (eg. Prada). The reason why I phrase it in this manner is due to the fact that buying a brand name is often a perfectly sensible consumer choice - look no further than my new Callaway FT-i driver which I would argue is worth every nickel that I paid for it.
  6. Donating money to any religious institution which uses any portion of your money to maintain a place of worship or to pay clergy salaries.
  7. Private box seating at a sporting event when it offers no improved view.
  8. Smoking cigarettes.
  9. Buying diamond jewellery.
  10. Buying art where the cost of the item bears absolutely no relation to the labour and material involved in creating the piece. Exhibit A - the $140,000,000 US paid by David Martinez for Jackson Pollock's No. 5, 1948: No. 5, 1948
Posted by The Atheist Missionary at 10:53 AM
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18 comments:

  1. Spending large amount of money does not waste the money. The money was given to someone for their products and labor. They, in turn spend that money on other things. While I think that spending $500 on a pair of sneakers is silly, the manufacturer of that sneaker was able to pay his workers with that $500.
    Would you feel better is the sneakers in question were made by poor people? Then that money would be used to pay the poor people for their work.
    Wealth is not based entirely on the costs of materials and labor. Your understanding of basic economics seems very weak.
    People who have money should spend it or invest it in something productive (like stocks and bonds). That way the workers who create the goods can feed their families, and the businesses that employ these people can continue to operate.
    What would you have her do with her money? Hide it? That benefits no one.
    Give it away? Alms do some short term benefit, but helping to create and sustain jobs is a long term benefit that helps to pay for itself.
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  2. So, you group supporting a house of worship with cigarettes, prada purses, and pesticides? I fail to see your logic.

    Just how would you support a house of wroship? Or is that the hidden message of your page?

    Perhaps you might want to rethink?
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  3. If this was a Republican First Lady, the media would be on this story like rabid animals. But Obama will get a free pass.
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  4. Bogus, my point is simply that all of the listed items are (in my opinion) akin to pissing your money into the bay.

    I wouldn't support a house of worship. I'd rather buy $540 sneakers - at least they exist.
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  5. Where do you draw the line? By this logic, in a world where anyone dies from lack of money, any non-essential spending is immoral. Is this just a problem with capitalism in general?
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  6. In Michelle Obama's defense, she is already receiving heat for her off-the-rack dresses and use of domestic designers. Seriously, can you even remember another first lady who's worn sneakers? I'm betting most other U.S. first ladies wear much more expensive shoes that no one even bothers to comment about.
    I must admit that if she wanted to make a statement, she should have worn sneakers made domestically. And $500!
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  7. Another Fool, I don't pretend to be perfect. I draw the line long before asceticism (attested to by the Callaway driver referred to in my post). However, I am trying to eumlate Peter Singer's view in The Life You Can Save. Simply put - I am trying not to waste money and I am trying to ensure that a decent percentage of my income is devoted to worthy causes that improve the lot of the world's suffering.
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  8. Mrs Obama can wear anything she wants at any cost if that is what they can afford. It is no ones business of the cost of wardrobe. How many US soldiers died last week? Come on lets get our priorities in order.
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  9. Buying a Hummer or an Escalade or any big car to transport one 180 Lbs human being, that's immoral.
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  10. Sneakers or drivers, wherein lies morality? Is it in utility or cost efficiency? It seems completely arbitrary. When compared to suffering how can one be moral and not the other? By what logic can a sneaker be an immoral purchase, but a driver is reasonable? Isn't it all subjective?

    The life of an impoverished child or a soldier, which is worth more? Which should be the real priority? I don't know.
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  11. While this set of morals is something I can agree with, I would also point out that Art is worth more than the sum of its parts, and berating others for paying a large sum for a painting is absurd. This includes much of fashion. When you contribute money to designers and artists, you are contributing to culture and the expansion of exploration of the human condition.
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  12. Given the absolutely horrible taste of most tap water, bottled water isn't entirely wasteful. Granted, it would be smarter to get a simple filter for the tap, but if you're out and about and have a choice between unfiltered tap and bottled water, it's certainly no more wasteful to buy bottled water than it is to buy a soda. Considering that most unfiltered tap water also has a higher amount of chemicals, I'd say it's even sensible to either filter or drink filtered water.
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  13. Tim said: "it's certainly no more wasteful to buy bottled water than it is to buy a soda". I can't disagree with that.
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  14. Hi Atheist Missionary

    Found you through Rauser's Blog. You wrote: "I believe that most applied ethicists (such as Peter Singer) would agree this view. However, libertarians such as Jan Narveson would likely argue that they have every right to spend what they earn on what they wish."

    These two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. It all depends on whether your position is that one should donate their excess money to worthy causes for moral reasons or whether one's excess money should be taken for distribution to appropriate worthy causes.

    It's possible to simultaneously hold the views that 1) a person should be legally free to spend money they've earned wherever they want; and 2) a good person will donate a significant portion of it to worthy causes.

    I'm curious what your position is on this.
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  15. Also, regarding golf, George Carlin in one his monologues says his plan for giving the homeless a place to live is to tear down the golf courses, and goes into a rant that includes something like "shame on you for playing this… (replace … with a Carlin-style list) elitist game." I don't agree with him, but I think your inclusion of bottled water and cigarettes (among others) is coming from the same sort of position, i.e. I don't do it so you shouldn't. Any thoughts on that?
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  16. Jerry, I will preface my comments by readily conceding that any judgment of immorality requires a starting point. Obviously, I don't base my morality on a divine command but I am also not a moral relativist. I believe that rape, murder and the wanton waste of resources are wrong regardless of who is making the determination. I get my sense of what is right and wrong from my evolved and learned sensibilities. I readily concede that there is a strong Christian etic in what I have learned and I was heavily indoctrinated with Christianity as a child.

    Now, with that preface out of the way, I agree with your first point. In fact, I lean towards a libertarian outlook and agree with the simultaneous views you have stated. I personally believe that it is immoral to own a Maserati while millions die around the world from hunger. That being said, I recently drove one and respect the owner's right to have purchased it. Singer urges us to drill this analysis down to unnecessary purchases such as bottled water. I find this reasoning compelling.

    As to your second point, again I think you are dead on. I play golf and occasionally spend more than a hundred dollars on a single round. This is unconscionable when compared to what that money could do for an impoverished family living in the third world. So, do I stop playing golf? No, but I am more conscious of the fact that ratcheting my lifestyle down just a notch can allow me to be more generous with charities than I have been in the past.
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  17. Jerry, I forgot to thank-you for dropping by. Best, TAM.
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  18. Hi TAM

    Thanks for having me, and thanks for your reply.

    As a result of the recent exchanges at Randal's blog, I am planning to read one or both of the Singer books that were mentioned. I hope you'll stick around there. Randal and the theists who post there are people you can reason with, so it makes for some interesting discussions at times.

    Jerry
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