Megan McArdle admits right up front that she recently splurged on a very spendy kitchen appliance, so you know she does not number herself among the community of scolds on the topic of thrift:
For decades, Americans have wallowed in credit, shunned savings and delighted in debt. In 1982, the personal savings rate was 10.9% of disposable income, by 2005 it had fallen to just 1.5%. It has since rebounded, but remains a measly 5%.
All this profligacy supports a rather vibrant cottage industry in polemics against consumerism. Authors as varied as the economist Robert H. Frank (1999’s “Luxury Fever”) and the political theorist Benjamin R. Barber (2007’s “Consumed”) have ganged up on what they see as the particularly unequal and excessive American spending habits. Unsurprisingly considering their abhorrence of waste, they are avid recyclers; the same arguments, behavioral economics studies and anecdotes appear time and time again. Access to credit makes consumers overspend. Materialistic people are anxious and unhappy. The conspicuous-consumption arms race is unwinnable. Down with status competition! Down with long work weeks, grueling commutes and McMansions! Up with family time, reading and walkable neighborhoods! The effect is rather like strolling down the main tourist strip in a beach town: Each merchant rushes out of his shop, gesticulating wildly and showing you exactly the same thing that you saw at all the previous stores.
The latest person to open up shop on this boardwalk is Baylor marketing professor James A. Roberts. “Shiny Objects: Why We Spend Money We Don’t Have in Search of Happiness We Can’t Buy” runs mostly true to form, its main innovation being to add financial self-help advice to the usual lectures. The book includes not only exhortations but actual instructions—how to make a budget, get out of debt and save for retirement.
It’s a thorough survey of both academic research on consumerism and basic finance advice. Still, I first ran into an argument I hadn’t seen before somewhere around page 200 — that the perfect surfaces of modern products hasten the replacement cycle because they show wear so badly — and well before then Mr. Roberts had fallen into some of the terrible habits of the genre. Though less openly contemptuous of the spendthrift masses than many of his fellow scolds, he still exudes that particular sanctimonious anti-materialism so often found among modestly remunerated professors and journalists.
Here are some of the things that upset him and that “document our preoccupation with status consumption”: Lucky Jeans, bling, Hummers, iPhones, 52-inch plasma televisions, purebred lapdogs, McMansions, expensive rims for your tires, couture, Gulfstream jets and Abercrombie & Fitch. This is a fairly accurate list of the aspirational consumption patterns of a class of folks that my Upper West Side neighbors used to refer to as “these people,” usually while discussing their voting habits or taste in talk radio. As with most such books, considerably less space is devoted to the extravagant excesses of European travel, arts-enrichment programs or collecting first editions.
