I agree that often it’s the most well off have the luxury of being able to walk away from the consumerism that they can easily afford.
When you could have a big TV or a ‘tacky’ big car or holiday or kitchen every 3 years, it can be much easier to not want them and to feel somehow more enlightened about consumerism and advertising. When your self worth comes more from the job you do, or the person you are, or somewhere else such as faith, the shiny new trainers or other outward markers of ‘success’ just aren’t needed, but when you actually don’t have much else, those things suddenly matter a lot to both individuals and communities. On one level that might be a pair of the latest trainers or a flash phone, and on the next level perhaps a certain brand of car or handbag, and behind that the UK holiday destination that you weekend in or the instrumental lessons your child has.
Lots of people in all income brackets are interested in ‘keeping up’ but what keeping up involves varies from paying the fees for boarding school, to having a certain T-shirt.
I think we like to imagine we are free from then influence of advertising and have thrown it off, and perhaps we do with the most basic consumerism, but often we take on other less obvious values which are still driving us in certain directions...whether they are all about providing ourselves and our families with experiences, or travel, or soft skills, or cultural experiences. Whichever group we are in, we are influenced to a degree by the norms around us, even if some aren’t overtly consumerist,
For us, we have what I would call moderate public sector professional jobs. Our income would seem a fortune to many, but is on the lower side for those with our education. We haven’t valued cars or home improvements or the big house, and by being pretty money savvy, our good, but nowhere near spectacular incomes have allowed us to privately educate our children and we will retire mid-50s. Lots of friends with incomes more than double ours say they couldn’t afford the education or retirement, but they might have houses double the size if ours and in more expensive areas. Neither of our choices was wrong or right and one isn’t morally superior to the other.
In the end, I think we all have goals and things we value. I agree that if you can afford it, it’s not a problem to spend big on something you value highly. For us it was education. For others it might be cars. But for most people, they key is spending big on just one area.....when you need to spend big in multiple areas and run huge debts to do it, it’s not about managing your resources to fund the thing you love, but seemingly indiscriminate spending on lots of stuff. And I do appreciate that lots of peoples finances done allow them to spend big on anything at all and I understand why people might seemingly foolishly get into debt for a big blow out at Christmas or when they decide to think ‘sod it’ to their lives of penny pinching and splash out on a new TV.
The real question is what gives you your purpose in life and sense of value. Where would you be and how would you feel if all your ‘stuff’ was stripped away. What would be left. The same could be said too about relationships...where would you be if suddenly the key people around you were no longer there for whatever reason. What about if you lived in an area if the world where natural disaster or war could wreck everything around you and leave you just standing naked and in bare feet? Some people have a self worth and value that comes from things beyond the transitory things. But perhaps that’s getting rather deep now..