One of the key points of "Crunchy Cons" is criticizing the profligate spending habits of Americans, likening them to loose sexual morals. Self-discipline, and self-governance, are what's required. In my book, I talked about the costs to families and communities of people going into debt to buy things they can't really afford, and don't need. Here's a great series of 2005 reports by The Dallas Morning News looking into the high-debt consumer lifestyle of Collin County, the prosperous suburban county north of Dallas. It's the most Republican county by voter registration in Texas, and one of the wealthiest in the US. Yet an unusual number of its families were filing for bankruptcy and drowning in debt, as I wrote in "Crunchy Cons," citing these reports. Why? From the DMN stories:
Many families are struggling with materialism, debt and values, several Collin County-area church leaders said. More than half the county's residents say they belong to a religion.The Rev. Doug Miller said he was shocked when he took over the helm at First United Methodist Church of Frisco and noticed so many 30-something people in big houses with stay-at-home moms shuttling the kids to soccer practice in gas-guzzling SUVs.
"They all really do feel like they need these things, this 3,400-square-foot house with three kids," he said. "I guess they do, if you have to have your own computer room, television room, playroom, bathroom. That seems necessary to keep a kind of homeostasis within the family."
The Rev. Henry Petter, pastor at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic church in Plano, said that it's no sin to be prosperous but that with great gifts should also come great gratitude and generosity.
"Honestly, if they were all doing what they should be doing, we certainly wouldn't have any debts in our church," he said. "We wouldn't have to worry about anybody that came to us begging for money, and many do."
Well. In his column today, David Brooks observes that the loss of the virtue of thrift is a serious problem in contemporary America:
The United States has been an affluent nation since its founding. But the country was, by and large, not corrupted by wealth. For centuries, it remained industrious, ambitious and frugal.Over the past 30 years, much of that has been shredded. The social norms and institutions that encouraged frugality and spending what you earn have been undermined. The institutions that encourage debt and living for the moment have been strengthened. The country’s moral guardians are forever looking for decadence out of Hollywood and reality TV. But the most rampant decadence today is financial decadence, the trampling of decent norms about how to use and harness money.
What prompted Brooks's column was a new report by the Institute for American Values on the social consequences of the loss of thriftiness in American culture. You can read that work here. This could hardly be more timely. As Brooks correctly notes, we have got to move away from a culture that valorizes ideals that destroy frugality. The Republican Party has been every bit as complicit in this as has the Democratic Party. It's consumerism, plain and simple. The church, by and large, hasn't stood up to it either. Who among us has, really?
Time for a culture war against spendthriftiness. That's one that responsible people of the left and the right can join.
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junk mail man, I have the same initial reaction as you at Charles' comment. But when I thought about it I think he was making the point that an investment is a form of spending but not consumption.
Right, because the credit card companies forced their victims into signing up. I agree that many of their promotions can be pretty deceptive, but if one is responsible about credit to begin with then that never comes into play.
Being thrifty has officially become mainstream. I know you don't watch much television at all, but on the series finale of "Men in Trees," there was a scene that mirrored this "new" trend: thrift. Jane demonstrated to her husband how not to be cheap by throwing money out the window. "See? It's not a big deal," Jane said. Sam, her husband, stops the RV and goes after it. Later, when they each write down what they've saved, Jane sees Sam has saved a small fortune and much more than her. (He works sanitation.) He says (roughly), "I don't need to be thrifty; I want to be thrifty."
The end of that story line shows Jane picking up the thrifty bug. It was definitely a good episode if only for those scenes!
RD: "One of the key points of "Crunchy Cons" is criticizing the profligate spending habits of Americans, likening them to loose sexual morals. Self-discipline, and self-governance, are what's required."
Rod, I think you've stumbled on a new theory in political science. Loose sexual morals and profligate spending habits are related....there was a balanced budget when Clinton was in office so he had sex to compensate....now, there's no sex in the White House, so Bush spent us into a huge deficit...I guess neither was very self-disciplined. LOL
Thanks, Rod. BTW, the David Brooks piece was great.
Right now, being thrifty is becoming trendy, but there could come a time in the near future when it is simple necessity. It took years of post-WWII affluence for America to become the land of rampant consumption and consumerism. It might take an equally long period of bad economic times for Americans to learn thrift out of necessity.
Brooks talked about the lottery. I have a book somewhere that shows how a person who invested the same amount that most lottery winners spend a week could become a millionaire in a couple of decades on that small investment.
We are still plenty wasteful, and I don't see people giving up their McMansions any time soon, even if they are now forced to give up their SUV's.
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