My beloved laptop–the one I’ve blogged on since starting college–is dying. I thought it was gone at one point, because I tried to start it up and got some weird error screen instead, but then I shut it down and started it up again OK. But that’s happened a couple times since. So this morning, I got up early with my dad to go hunt for a good deal on laptops. We ended up getting lucky and getting handed a ticket for a discounted laptop by a man who had three discount tickets but decided he only needed two. So now I’ve got a new Toshiba with all the specs an atheist nerd friend of mine recommended. Won’t actually use it until same atheist nerd friend gets me going with an Ubuntu / XP dual boot, but I’ve got it now. That was my largest purcase today, but I also headed up to the Appleton mall (my hometown of Oshkosh is too lame to have its own mall) to buy some clothing–partly for myself, party as a gift.

Why am I telling you all this? As a prelude to voicing my annoyance with the White People cause Buy Nothing Day. Previous link is courtesy of Facebook and a friend of mine who shall remain unnamed. Let’s take a look at it:

Why do you buy?

Once upon a time, we used to buy what we needed, period.

This is probably untrue. Acquisition of material goods that go beyond basic needs occurs in relatively primitive societies, probably it predates the invention of money, which is necessary for buying. Therefore, it seems unlikely that there has ever been a time period where money has only been used for necessities. (Note, though, that the appeal to the past is a fallacy, it could be that our habits of buying are bad even if we’ve been at them for a very long time.)

Now that we have all we need, we buy for other reasons: to impress each other, to fill a void, to kill time.

Again, doing things solely to impress each other occurs even in relatively primitive societies. On the other hand, it’s not clear to what extent people in our society buy things just to “fill a void” or “kill time.” (Note how cliches are already beating out concrete examples.)

Buy Nothing Day is a simple idea: try not to shop for a day, and see how your view of our world changes.

Where does all this stuff come from?

Where will it go?

Why do we buy it?

Aren’t there better ways of spending our time?

I don’t know about the creators of Buy Nothing Day, but most days I don’t buy anything, except for food at the student union. Yesterday (Thanksgiving) I didn’t even do that. So it would be odd if not shopping on some particular day were to change anyone’s view of the world, though this makes me think perhaps the creators of Buy Nothing Day have unusual buying habits. On the first three questions, it seems odd that not buying anything would lead to answers. In fact, a good way to find answers to them would be to buy a few books on the subject. The creators of the website talk as if a day of mystical practice could produce answers, but that is false. Finally, the last question is equivocal: presumably there are better ways of spending our time than shopping constantly, but it would be a mistake to never shop.

…

What’s the point?

To stop and think about what and how much we buy effects the environment, our own well-being and people in developing countries. By participating in the global BND, you make a statement for a new kind of lifestyle, culture and politics:

* A personal life that is not just about making and spending money
* A public culture that is diverse and open for many ideas and concerns, not dominated by pro-shopping messages
* Politics based on global peace and fairness, and true cost economics (not neo-classical GDP economics)

On the first bullet point, I think most people already have a personal life that is not just about spending and making money. I’m not aware of any acquaintances whose personal lives are just about making and spending money. Similarly on bullet no. 2, as far as I can tell our culture is relatively open to “many ideas and concerns.” There’s a pretty good deal of silly trend following, but we certainly aren’t dominated by “pro-shopping messages.” I’m less sure what to make about point three, partly because I don’t know what “true cost economics” are. I suspect, though, that whatever it is its not something being promoted by well-informed economists, and the idea is too obscure to be effectively promoted by a showy protesty event–it would be better promoted by trying to bring publicity to “true cost economics” books and blogs.

So the linked website is silly, but is there any other good reason not to do what I did today? It’s hard to see any reason why I shouldn’t have bought a laptop. As an aspiring writer/academic, a working laptop is a basic business expense, and anyway I’m sure the people using the internet to promote Buy Nothing Day are spending money on computers. But clothes, I admit, are luxury items, and there are ethical objections to ever buying luxury items: Peter Singer argues that we recognize we ought to be willing to sacrifice a luxury item in the service of saving a proverbial drowning child, but buy not buying the luxury items in the first place, we could give the money to pay for health care and nutrition for third-world children and save quite a few lives.

Unfortunately, not even Singer is a perfect Singerian. Given that we aren’t all giving to charity down to the point of marginal utility, given that we accept a certain amount of selfish spending, it’s not clear what the specific objection to shopping is. Why is it better, say, to spend money spoofing ads (the primary business of AdBusters, the main promoter of Buy Nothing Day) than to spend money on cool clothes? Singerian arguments would be a big indictment of our society if they were right, but they don’t lend specific support to Buy Nothing Day as far as I can tell (does it matter that the friend I heard about Buy Nothing Day from is one of the better dressed people I know?)

The obvious Hansonian analysis here is that the main purpose of Buy Nothing Day is to create group identity among a certain type of liberal hipster. You might also think it’s a subtle form of class snobbery, since it’s harder for poorer people to give up shopping on random days, harder still to give up shopping on a day with good sales. If you’re making $12 an hour, waiting in line for three hours to get a $300 discount on a laptop is just an obvious economic decision, not an expression of some mysterious “shopping culture.” My critical analysis of the website seems over literal.

I feel a certain personal closeness to the sentiment behind Buy Nothing Day, though. Badly executed though it may be, I’m a Singer sympathizer, so I’m pro- wasting less money. That makes it hard to embrace the Hansonian analysis whole-heartedly. Plus, the friend I keep alluding to but not naming is, on all external evidence, sincere. When I treat this as fodder for my philosophy of language kick, I’m less willing to treat the surface meaning of the material as almost insignificant. How do I do the philosophy of language here?