This is the best explanation of consumerism that I’ve come across: Lived Effects of the Contemporary Economy: Globalization, Inequality, and Consumer Society, by Michael Storper [pdf].

I’ve always been perplexed by the phenomenon of overspending in the United States, which seems to hurt the very people who engage in it. The explanations I’ve read have never felt satisfactory. The theories that are usually put forth are either that Americans are hopelessly vain and childish, and therefore can’t resist the lure of advertising and feel an overwhelming need to acquire the latest fashions and gadgets, or that items that in previous decades were considered luxuries are now necessities because society is harsher and more competitive, so that, for instance, living in the more expensive housing that is available in safer neighborhoods with better schools, or driving a luxury car with the latest safety features, have become the norm for middle class families if they want to retain a middle class standard of living and give themselves and their kids a chance to succeed.

I don’t buy the first explanation because I simply don’t believe that a majority of the public is fatuous and foolish, to the point of going deeply into debt simply because they can’t control themselves. And I find the second explanation condescending as well. It amounts to an apologist point of view that essentially says: Things are tough, the world is confusing and scary, so give the poor overspent middle class Americans a break if they sometimes make costly choices in order to try to provide the best possible life for themselves and their families.

I’m all for giving people a break. None of us always makes the best possible decisions and none of us should be crucified for not being perfect. But you’re not a giving someone a break when you justify, and therefore offer no possibility of breaking, a cycle that is screwing them over.

I also find it alarmingly classist. The subtext is that the middle class shouldn’t have to put up with crime ridden neighborhoods, unsafe cars, and substandard schools: those are for poor people.

Elizabeth Warren, who puts forth what I consider to be this apologist theory of consumerism — including explaining away why the middle class live in larger houses today than they did in the 70s, even though housing prices have since quadrupled — writes:

There are always options, but for families with children, these options signal that their middle-class lives are slipping away.

Somehow the implication is that if you’re middle class, you have the right to better life. What if instead we worked to create a society in which everyone can have a decent life? That goal is not going to be accomplished by clinging to and constantly trying to increase whatever privilege or status one can scrape together for oneself. That’s a zero-sum competition that no one can win and that ultimately harms everyone, whether they engage in it or not. Those who take part are going to find themselves stretched thinner and thinner, and will have to spend more and more money just to keep up, and those who don’t or can’t participate are just going to be left out.

Status seeking, as Storper explains, is the very mechanism that creates inequality. He writes:

A more powerful explanation for the stagnation of satisfaction, on average and at the top, comes from the notion of positionality in economics. A portion of the satisfaction we get from certain kinds of goods or services has been shown to depend on their position in a quality and status hierarchy…. The only way to slow down status consumption is collectively, with mechanisms that simultaneously limit what our status competitors are doing. This is a situation where rational individual choices lead to collective outcomes which most would not prefer…. Thus, even though the USA is awash in private wealth, it is very difficult to convince even the increasingly wealthy upper-middle-class to reallocate more of their income to public goods, because most of them do not feel rich enough.

It seems to me that the status seeking that Storper is referring to is literally the need to “keep up with the Joneses.” It’s not necessarily a desire to outdo the Joneses, but an effort to try to at least keep up, so one is not left out of the normal course of society. It doesn’t have to do just with saving face, it has practical implications as well. When everyone has a cell phone, being out of touch while you’re away from home because you don’t have one can mean missing out on opportunities. It could mean not getting a call for a job, for instance. Not having a computer or a car can have the same consequences.

But because humans are social animals, saving face is a major issue as well. Not having the same lifestyle as others in your social circles makes you a weirdo. And people can’t necessarily choose to just disassociate with status-seekers. Whether it’s the workplace or the children’s school, there are many areas where people have to maintain, to some degree, their position and social standing. But even if they could, people would generally not choose to opt out of social interactions. By definition, most people want to belong and be part of the mainstream and are not willing to be seen as eccentric oddballs.

So what’s the solution? One is political, of course. Storper writes that in Europe, where public goods are much more available, there is less jockeying for position in the acquisition of private goods than in the United States.

There is a variation of almost 20% between the USA (30%) and most of the high public expenditure Continental countries (50%). Considering that military expenditures account for a relatively high percentage of US public expenditure, there are big differences in the quantities of public goods provided to the citizens of these nations. Public goods are often distributed so as to equalize access to certain kinds of necessities and thus should offset some of the postionality effects of status consumption.

The privatization of public goods not only takes away income from citizens directly, because they have to shell out for basic necessities out of their own pockets, but it also increases inequality because those goods then become a source of status seeking, so people have to pay for increasingly better and costlier services in order to keep up with their socio-economic equals. College education is an obvious example.

But the other solution lies in the consumption patterns of individuals. If we were able to create social circles in which status seeking is not the norm and where choosing a more frugal lifestyle is accepted and no longer considered eccentric, then people who have access to those circles would be freed from having to keep up with the Joneses.

It seems so simple, but the caveat is that it has to be a collective effort. There needs to be a movement to create meaningful groups within which people can live frugally without shame or stigma. Many such movements have existed, but they are dying out, more and more. The hippie movement of the 60s is an obvious example. But even as recently as the 80s it was fashionable among some college students to wear thrift store outfits, and in the 90s there was the widespread grunge look of ripped jeans and old flannel shirts. Today even little kids wear designer clothes.

Part of the reason for this is also discussed by Storper. The same phenomenon that has resulted in the loss of jobs and lowering of wages in the United States — globalization — has also produced a surfeit of cheap consumer goods. The price of clothing, for instance, has declined since the 1970s, and so have the prices of electronics and household appliances. On the surface, that may seem like a bright spot in the gloomy economic situation of American low and middle income families. But its effects are pernicious.

Storper writes:

It is estimated that in the USA, a 3% direct decline in the real wages [of unskilled workers] has been compensated by a 3% consumer surplus for this particular income group. One of the reasons why there may have been less protest over the emerging income distribution than might be expected from the income figures per se, is that many of the same producers who are losing in relative — and even in absolute — terms, are still gaining as consumers in absolute, material terms.

In other words, even as low and middle income families are less able to afford basic necessities, they are better able than in past decades to secure positional goods like new clothing and appliances. The result is that poverty has become hidden, which only adds to its stigma. Since all anyone can see on the surface is that their neighbors have nice clothes and fancy appliances, but not that they can’t afford to see a doctor, how will we as a society ever get out from under the tyranny of status seeking and positionality?

I think the answer lies in initiatives like freeganism, which is too big a topic to undertake here. But I also think groups like these probably need to make more of an effort to become less off-putting to the average mainstream person. Even within the anarchist movement, squatters, punks, and assorted crusties are seen by some as offending more mainstream activists with their dirty and ragged clothes. I’m on the side of the crusties, who are at least trying to create real alternatives to rampant consumerism, and who live what they preach. I think the rest of us need to jump on board instead of decrying lifestylism, and create more nuanced choices. People should be able to choose what degree of thrift and nonconformity they are willing to adopt, and not be alone in those choices but part of larger societal movement that works to make frugality and poverty nothing to be ashamed of.