Rich People's Stuff

Jen linked to "The Story of Stuff," which is a pretty interesting video about the production/consumption/disposal process of the material economy. (And while I found the woman's presentation style a bit reminiscent of a kind of over-earnest 8th grade teacher, that's not necessarily a bad thing.) She makes good points about the amount of resources that goes into extraction of materials and the production of consumer goods - it's a lot.

As I watched, I waited for the inevitable - the image of consumption as something that occurs in a big Wal-Mart type store with underpaid workers who do not have employer-paid health care when people buy cheap stuff. It's irksome to me since this simply reinforces this self-protecting notion held by too many people with money that it's those other (poorer, fatter, stupider, generally less cool) people buying crappy junk at Wal-Mart that ruins the environment. Well, guess what Upper Middle Class Person with your expensive designer jeans, new car, new cell phone, and $3000 patio furniture: your crap stinks, too. The virtue or demerit of your consumption is not dictated by the quality or the price point of the objects you buy, the social desiribility of your fellow shoppers, or the education level of the person who sells it to you.

I think the video touches on this a bit, with the discussion of perceived obsolescence and fashion, but she talks about it in weird language: that people will be less valued since they are not contributing to the golden arrow of consumption. That is not what is going on in anybody's head when they see a person, say, in dorky, unfashionable clothes or carrying a clunky old cell phone. What teenager checks out a girl and says to her friend, "man, that chick is like totally not doing her part to keep the process of the material economy going"? They think, "that girl is uncool." And the fashion-as-obsolescence argument does not explain the situation of a person wearing last year's cool shoes, this year's cool shoes, or shoes that are just not ever really going to look cool. People judge others' material goods as a signal of (at a minimum) taste, up-to-dateness, and wealth. (That the wealth in question may exist only in the sense of having access to a credit card is not generally considered. If the person is black, it may be assumed that he or she has nice clothes and a nice car but lives in a hovel.)

She also finesses the leisure time issue by stating that "some" analysts say we have less leisure time now than at any point since feudal society. I am sure that there are "some" people who will say any damn thing, but that doesn't make it true. This claim goes against the data I have seen. I also totally have to call bullshit on her claim that the timing of peak happiness of the American people occurring in the 1950's must relate to the fact that that era was just as we turned into a nation of consumers. It is just as obvious (which is to say, not at all) that Americans have become less happy after the cultural upheaval of the civil rights movement in the mid-50's, but she ain't blaming Rosa Parks.

On a related note, I also must confess that I put little stock in the pronouncements of moneyed people who are in favor of internalizing some of the externalized costs of production in the form of fair trade, etc., because I have difficulty getting past the obvious truth that they can, you know, easily afford the higher price without it making much dent whatsoever in their actual consumption habits. It's easy to be in favor of things that are viewed as altruistic but that don't require any actual sacrifice. It seems to me (and I'm feeling my way toward this as I write) that for these people, money is less the scarce resource than is time, so to put their money where their mouth is (so to speak), I would need to see a higher expenditure (or willingness to spend) of time before I believe that they are willing to make sacrifices for these values of environmental protection, equity, and so on. Of course, some people who actually do have more limited incomes and budgets favor these things, too, and I am generally more convinced that their attitudes and behaviors say something meaningful about their values.

You know what I would like to see? More people with this general sustainability value orientation saying and living the message: "It's good to do things that are good for the environment/your fellow man even if they could possibly make you appear to be cheap or poor." Perhaps it's Operation Cheap Ass that has made it so salient to me that many people only want to do the kinds of things that are not available to a person of little means. Is this because they are motivated by impression management concerns and want to unambiguously signal that the purchase/action is about their ecological values (and definitely not about being poor)? Or in part because it's a lot more fun and socially and personally desirable to buy a new green product than to buy a second-hand product or just keep using the one you already have, so if you have the money, why not? (And hey, nobody else sees all that stuff you put in the trash, thereby tarnishing your green credibility.) The most environmentally-friendly purchase you make is often going to be the one you don't make at all.

...Oh, and on the note about Wal-Mart and the health insurance issue: I was amused to note recently that this company simply cannot get a break no matter what they do. The Economist notes in an article about health care reform: "So it came as a shock when Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer and bete noire of the political left, sent a letter to the White House on June 30th supporting an employer mandate (if accompanied by cost-control measures). Cynics pointed out that Wal-Mart pays more for employee health cover than weaker or stingier rivals, so any such mandate would raise costs for its competition." Actually, I think the employer mandate is a horrible idea. We need insurance to be less dependent on employment, not more.