Freedom of Choice
In Money God and Greed Jay W. Richards makes the case that our
consumerist culture is not the product of our economic system but rather our
own personal choices. He bases this idea on the Biblical sin of gluttony (one
of the seven deadly sins prominently displayed in the movie Seven) as the true source of consumerism
and also tells us that there is no clear criteria that defines gluttony and it
varies from person to person and that it’s not only a problem for the rich.
Basically anyone can make the choice to spend their money on frivolous things
they can’t really afford but nobody really makes them. Sure they’re being
tempted by ads and product placement but in the end you make your own decisions
and you must own up to them. We’re also not talking about buying an extra candy
bar at the grocery store but rather living in government assisted housing while
driving a Dodge Challenger. It’s not having a lot of money or a lot of
expensive stuff but living above your means, taking loans and going into debt
that marks the glutton. Buying a new iPhone just to have a brand new iPhone could
be a sign of gluttony while buying a new iPhone when all of your devices aren’t
compatible anymore probably isn’t. Finding a balance with our money is the key
to not being gluttonous and participating in the consumerist culture.
While capitalism is the enabler of
the consumerist culture there are also pros to this system. Capitalism creates
competition which forces companies to make better quality products and drives
the prices down. As a specific example let’s look at the taxi v. Uber
controversy see the taxi services in most cities haven’t innovated or changed
in the last fifty years and now Uber has come along and offered a superior, and
cheaper, product. This has angered the taxi drivers because they are losing
business but still don’t change their product sounding the death knell for
their industry. Is this necessarily a bad thing? The (semi) free market is deciding
who survives and who dies out. We have chosen which company to support with our
money and which to let go by the wayside.
But what about the taxi drivers?
Shouldn’t they get some sort of compensation for their lost jobs? Yes. Should
we limit Uber’s right to expand and hire new drivers? No. See here in the U.S.
we don’t live in a “pure capitalism” rather we have attempted to take the best
parts of capitalism (better products) and socialism (pick a social program) and
fused them. Look at programs like social security and welfare that are designed
to help people who need it, find them a job, and get them on their feet. These
programs help protect the people while the marketplace helps protect
businesses, together they provide for everyone (nearly).
What’s the point?
The hybrid we have created here in
the U.S. isn’t perfect and we tend to disagree about how it could be improved,
but the fact remains that it does it’s best to protect both business and
everyday people. It’s not perfect but we have been able to make it work most of
the time.
Your examples that differentiate gluttony from simple behavior of a consumer makes a good point. Like so much that we talked about last year, life is usually a balancing act of one kind or another. In a consumerist society, we have to work even harder to find the balance between buying things that we can afford and things that we cannot. Similar to the way that in this same society of unrestrained anger, we must find a balance between justified anger and uncontrolled, hurtful anger.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy your take on capitalism as an engine for better products and lower prices. The taxi vs. Uber service is a great example of how we can constantly be improving the work that we do, and I think that our work gives God glory, as long as it is not always about making the most amount of money.
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