Columnists
A zinger from Singer
My favourite ethicist, Peter Singer, is at it again. Professor Singer, of Princeton University and the University of Melbourne, is a frequent burr under the saddle of conventional thinking, perhaps best known for his views on our ethical obligation to respect animal life. He modestly refers to press coverage of him as the “world’s most influential living philosopher.”
He has recently published an essay as one of 15 contributors to Vox Media’s challenge question “What do we do now that will be considered unthinkable in 50 years?” Other contributors dealt with such issues as the selfdriving car (it won’t be around), bosses (they’re obsolete) and eating meat (bye, bye).
Singer’s contribution is on the subject of “conspicuous consumption”—a term first used by sociologist Thorstein Veblen in his book Theory of the Leisure Class, to refer to spending on things that aren’t essential, just because you can afford to, and because it gives you some kick to show other people that you can. Singer argues that conspicuous consumption will be a thing of the past in 50 years.
He uses as his example the $60,000 Patek Philippe watch. Why would anyone want to own one—when an equally reliable timepiece can be purchased at one thousandth of the cost—except as an ostentatious display of wealth? He argues that such expenditures will become socially unacceptable in a world faced with hunger, poverty and climate change.
His prediction rests on his belief that we are slowly making moral progress. Over the long term, he says our “circle of concern” has expanded from the tribe to the nation, so why shouldn’t it extend further? On top of that, he believes the altruistic lifestyle is more rewarding than the selfish mode, so that rich people will, while perhaps being shamed into altruism, stick with it because it is spiritually rewarding.
Singer is not just going after the rich for choosing to spend their money on environmentally immodest items like “oceangoing ‘yachts’ that cost hundreds of millions of dollars and use more fuel in an hour than a small car would use in 10 years.” He’s picking on the luxury Swiss watch, which has a relatively small carbon footprint. He believes that in 50 years, you’ll be spending your first $60 on a purely functional timepiece—perhaps a Timex —and the remaining $59,940 on your fellow planeteers’ wellbeing.
Professor Singer’s optimistic views have been challenged. To show that conspicuous consumption is thriving, a writer for the Sydney Morning Herald has offered up the example of the recent grand opening of a Tiffany jewellery store in Sydney, at which a diamond worth $40 million was flown in from New York and put on special display, and for which social media phenom Kendall Jenner was paid $500,000 to attend and gush over the scene, tweeting that it had been an “honour” to be in the presence of the diamond.
It’s easy to dismiss Singer’s viewpoint as naive. But I think he has a point: you don’t have to stretch that far to envision some event—such as Kendall Jenner’s pay packet for showing up at a high end jewellery store—sparking widespread revulsion and precipitating more cautious consumption by the rich. Change can build up slowly and then come about fast.
The essay raises some interesting questions. Can behaviour truly be altruistic if one engages in it by virtue of social pressure? Haven’t poverty and hunger always been with us; so why hasn’t altruistic behaviour stepped up to the plate already? Are we really making “moral progress” and expanding our “circle of concern”? Who decides who is rich, and how much the rich should contribute to the common good? Don’t taxes delineate the extent of the moral obligations of the rich? And Is the desire to spend ostentatiously a deep human characteristic that no amount of social pressure can extinguish?
I would be willing to run an experiment to test that last question. I would offer to sell rich people $60 watches—but charge them $60,000. That way, they could have the satisfaction of having spent a lot of money just because they could, and the knowledge that they have not shown their wealth ostentatiously. Of course, that would merely put the burden onto my shoulders. Do I spend my earnings on a $60.000 watch, or redistribute them? Am I a conspicuous consumer or an altruist? Too bad these moral dilemmas come home to roost so quickly.
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