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We live in a consumerist society. But when speaking for my own social circles, we also live in an anti-consumption society: we buy many things, and we also feel vaguely guilty guilty and boast of all the wines that we present. (Buy second hand! Get the things from a purchase group of anything! Reuse! Recycling!)
Part of this anticonsumerism is driven by concerns about working conditions in developing countries with which we trade, and certainly I think that improving working conditions in those countries should be a high global priority. Some of them are driven by environmental concerns, and would rejoice in a similar way in a carbon tax that tried to capture the externalities of our consumption.
But I believe that part of the anticonsumerism is driven for less noble reasons. The richer, the more accessible the alternatives to buy things on Amazon. You can afford to obtain custom -made products for you or make them yourself; You have more leisure time to collect things from the Facebook market or drive up and in half of second -hand coast purchases.
Most people can’t. For them, the ability to buy cheap consumer products at affordable prices is to change life. And I think, as the Trump administration tries to rationalize its tariffs with insurance that we do not need affordable goods, it is time to recognize that, in fact, it is good when the goods are affordable.
It seems strange to write a defense of cheap things. The Americans do it too much, they buy things at Amazon and their even cheaper Chinese competitors. Keeping low prices is one of the most important issues for voters.
In practice, everyone want cheap consumer goods, all vote for cheap consumer goods and all pursue cheap consumer goods. But, in general, they do it with a lot or hand wing.
I wrote earlier this week about some of the things that cheap consumer goods have made possible in my life and for my family. I direct a civic class in my children’s school; There are 10 children, and the purchase of 10 of anything adds quickly. But because consumer goods are cheap, I was able to buy equipment for paper work when we wanted to learn about paper work, model trees and people to talk about urban design, costume costumes for the special and black special lesson.
I can try a hobby that would never try otherwise if it was a disbursement of $ 1,000 to obtain the team that my family (big) needed. I bought plastic dice when I wanted to enter Dungoons & Dragons. I do not have to jump through my eldest daughter’s throat when Inexplicia manages to tear it out of each dress she owns because we can allow us to replace it.
My family is rich; We could settle for higher prices to the consumer. But many or families cannot. And even for the lowest prices, the lowest consumer prices mean that I can donate 30 percent of our income to charity and Give my children good lives and Save for retirement.
People in X rushed to surface that all this is excessive consumption. I could sew Halloween’s costumes of my children from scratch, someone told me. Why buy dice to play? D&D? Don’t you know that you can use a Dan-Roller application on your phone? (Another commentator opposed that response that the answer that “only has a phone” is not the most unconference of feelings; the first commentator said that anyone can get a phone because it can finance it. Am I in my local group not buying anything?
I am in my local purchase group anything; Pedro lent to my neighbors and lend them to them.
However, access to cheap consumer goods makes my life very better, and makes things accessible that otherwise it would be possible for me. I think that some of the answers I received were less about how to live in harmony with the planet (for which to live in a passable neighborhood and not own a car matter rather than buy things on Amazon) or how to improve the free treve -Troe -troekytestums true free free free. Tools we know) and more if they represented a reflexive disgust of the consumption habits of others.
And then I am anti-anti-consumption, at least in its current form. It is full of a hard judgment of other people for not sewing the attire of their children by hand, which deliberately ignores all the ways in which, even if it personally trusts things and does not buy anything from the groups, their lifestyle is possible.
I think it’s good when consumer goods are affordable; I think it’s good when people with very limited income can still buy a lot of Christmas gifts for their children; I think it is good that people can be a financial response and also have many hobbies and finance many activities for their children and friends of their children.
The rates will get our lives worse
All this is an important reason why I believe that rates are extraordinarily bathtubs. (An estimate on rates until Thursday, which, of course, can change any time, is that they equals a fiscal increase of $ 4,400 per household).
I do not believe that the price of consumer goods will rise will make our business partners abroad abroad, and I think it will worsen our lives and more widespread, which will affect people who fight to exceed more deeply. I think our society is so rich that we have somehow lost sight of why, yes, material things are important, and their economic availability is something to celebrate.
That celebration is not necessary that it is not without problems or is not displayed. Every week in Shabbat, my family says traditional blessings and sings a song that is not part of Shabbat’s traditional liturgy, “Landsailor” by Vienna Teng, a love song for trucks and trains and cargo ships and the Straber and the Global Winter and a Hymn or a Hymn or Deep Hyno? He has made each person in the United States richer than a medieval king.
It is also the price in human suffering, animal suffering, environmental damage and danger we are inviting as we build an increasingly driven world by people and sacrifices that we do not see. But the spirit in the song is of joy and celebration, tempered by the consciousness of the greatest image, not of condemnation, contempt or disgust.
At this time, it is a topic of conversation that affordable goods have somehow corroded our society and we have the patriotic duty to accept high increases in Trump’s vision service. But his argument has much in common with the hate of the US consumer on the left. In general, I am in favor of a world where we tax externalities and prohibit forced labor, but I want a world where more people can consume as Americans, not a world where nobody is. The good thing is something to celebrate, and abundance is a form of taking. It is also something that cuts us to address the evils of the world in their ancient and modern forms.
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