A discussion about an economy of an affluent society

Last night I went to walmart with my better half. SHE needed to get some stuff. Anyway, I let HER go pick out the stuff SHE needed as I wandered off.The thing you have to understand about me is I'm a minimalist, not just in writing but also in life. It means that I absolutely only buy stuff that I need, and when I buy them I make sure that I got the cheapest possible stuff. Don't really care if it'll last or not. This is why even though I'm a gamer, programmer, etc. I still use a 6-7 year old computer (it was the cheapest thing I could find when I bought it), something many in my shoes would consider a piece of crap.As I was wandering through walmart, I noticed that most of these stuff, although would make one's life more comfortable, are just a waste of resources. What's worse, they're all cheap crap that most people never need.It is a fact of life that people in our society these days are compulsive buyers to a certain extend or other. People spend their hard earned money buying things they don't need. For example, a friend of mine just spent a kazillion bucks buying a flat tv. When I visited him, I thought to myself "a regular tv would have done the same job and cost 90% less."Now, be honest. Look around your house and you will realize that most of the crap lying around your house you don't care for, and at some point in time it must have cost you something to acquire it.At my friend's house, I was in his messy room when I noticed a gps device. I asked him about it and he said he spent 200 bucks on it a long time ago. He used it once.I'm not an economist by any mean although I do have some personal philosophies on it. The main question for those who are more educated in this field is does a fluent society absolutely must produce and consume useless crap?There is no doubt that Walmart represents a large chunk of the great American economy. But if you look inside it, like other retail stores, you will find stuff that people will never ever need. If anything, these things will make people's lives a little more comfortable for a very short period of time.I've spent some time of my life among the less fortunate members of our society and in other societies (countries). It seems that whenever these people have some money they'd spend it right away on something that is 100% recreational and temporary, and the next day they become poor again. I'm not talking about just drugs and cigarettes. I'm talking about buying a big and expensive stereo system to put in a mobile home in the poorest of the poor neighborhoods. I'm talking about getting satellite and paying extra for all the movie channels. Stuff like that.Are we, as a society, doomed to spend the rest of our time in existence laboring to acquire useless crap?Edited by gasby, : No reason given.Edited by gasby, : No reason given.

A fluent society would be one where people all speak their language fluently. I think you meant "affluent".While we are about it, there is also "effluent", the stream of waste produced by the affluent I guess I'm also a minimalist, as you define that term. I would guess that quite a few EvC members are minimalists. Otherwise they would be out running up their credit card debt instead of posting in evcforum. Look on the positive side. The people who acquire all of that useless crap are keeping you fully employed and earning a decent income.

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I would guess that quite a few EvC members are minimalists.

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Except when I do decide to buy something, I am happy to spend the extra money to get something that is of good quality. By quality I mean that it will be reliable, do what it is supposed to do very well, and will last a while.If someone is concerned about the environment, then she should probably spend the money necessary to buy something reliable that won't have to be thrown in the trash in a few months.

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"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." -- George Bernard Shaw

Yes, I'm with you on that. I don't go for the cheapest. But I don't go for all the bells and whistles either. Reliability is the most important issue.

I knew something sounded funny there. Thanks.

Reliability might be a problem in the past, but nowadays it isn't such a big issue anymore. May be I'm still too young to have enough experiences with all the crap that's produced out there, but I haven't had any problem with reliability of the cheapest stuff, given that it has to be able to do the job right.I have a 1990 Chrystler Le Baron. I spent 2000 bucks to get it. 3 weeks ago I had to get it tested for environmentally friendly emissions test. It had a fast pass, meaning it was exceptionally good.Bought a fan in a garage sale for 50 cents. Been using it for 4 years now. Bought a couple of cichlids 2 years ago for $2 each. I now have about 150 of those cichlids (I guess there is some truth to adam and eve producing 72 million people after all ).But the point is most of the time you don't really need to get the stuff with gold and diamonds attached to them for quality.

there is quite a bunch of crap-quality goods produced, especially thanks to businesses like wal-mart (or rather, the hell-mart that it is, who's gross sales equaled sweden's GDP in 03, making it richer than all but 20 or nations on the planet). If you don't make it cheap enough, wal-mart won't sell it, which invariably means that a lot is going to be crap. consider products made by unskilled workers--almost invariably it's crap. Japan used to make crappy electronics, now they make good quality stuff. Mexico now makes crap. eh, this doesn't make much sense.as to the lebaron--decent car. my family got one, used, in '88. It was, I think, an '86. Had it until '00.Edited by kuresu, : No reason given.

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I don't shop at walmart because it is evil.I'd rather spend twice as much and know that (a) the person selling it to me makes a living wage (so they can invest in the economy that buys my products) and (b) the money stays in my neighborhood and boosts my local economy instead of making some fat-son-of-sam rich for doing essentially nothing. I don't own a tv. Don't need one, don't want one. The "products" on them are no better than the ones on the shelves of walmart, and I have better things to invest my time in, Time is the coin of your life eh? I built mine from parts and a (then) new motherboard\chip for <$150 4 years ago. As I do a lot of graphics it is useful to have good capability for work. I have an eTrex Venture, the entry level map and WAAS gps by Garmin, ~$140 new, and a set of digital maps (north america road and waterway) ...I use it regularly, whether kayaking, hiking or driving. It helped me get my last job, something a tv will never do eh?Using it last saturday I was able to put my foot inside the footprint of a theropod (two legged meat-eating) dinosaur in the paluxy river ... in the area of the "Taylor" tracks:
http://paleo.cc/paluxy.htm
(thanks to directions from Glen and Ranger Kathy at the nearby Dinosaur Valley State Park) There are two ways to be rich -- (1) to have enough money to afford anything you may ever possibly want, and (2) to want everything you have. I'll choose the easier one thanks. Also known as the walmarting of america eh? Ever REread Walden? Ghandi?Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

Wish I had known about that. I would have driven up to get a pic of that.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Some mutations of useless crap turn into worthwhile essential items, and others become extinct.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to try out this new putter...

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'Liberalism is a mental disorder' - Michael Savage

I thought of emailing you, but I've been real busy with this project here and didn't think I'd have the time to go (wanted to the sat before but ended up working), then I got held over another week effective friday night. but we're in drastic danger of getting terminally off topic. Unfortunately the water was up (about 8 to 12 inches over the tracks in Glen's picture) and the bottom was covered in silty muck, hard to find anything except by stepping in it.But at least with the water in the picture we're back on topic (how's that for a fluent transitional fossil ... ). Let me post my few meager pictures to my website and start a new topic.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

Paluxy Hike

Got it. Way back in the late 60s or early 70s I got to wander around a lot of that area. It was pretty open in those days. It is amazing what is there.But no GPS back then {mandatory tie in to thread topic} and we brought out everything we brought in.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

the simple reason is these people will still be poor next week , but with one luxury to brighten their lives , they know any short term wealth will not last or be often repeated , so grab a bit of the good life when you can .

I may be dragging this off-topic, but I'm reading E.F Schumacher's 'Small is beautiful' (1973) and it has relevance to this topic although I won't do it justice.The deal is that the purpose of capitalism is to prevent wars of scarcity and bring peace through universal plenty. If capitalism/materialism achieves this then why don't we see the richest countries being the most peaceful?In reality the richest have the most to defend, and the most power with which to defend it.My point is that if society encourages perpetual economic growth and encourages personal expenditure, why should we be surprised when people buy crap they don't need? After all we've been conditioned to shop for peace.--Work should have have the purpose of enriching the worker as well as the employer and I don't mean materially. When dead things enter a factory and leave improved and human workers enter and leave degraded there is a serious problem.The OP is a good question, but I think it is addressing symptoms rather than causes.