Ask the Readers: What Are the Moral Implications of Spending?

I have no problem with someone analyzing their own spending; I do this myself all the time. The difficulty begins when someone decides another person’s spending is immoral or “obscene.” I worry that our society is headed toward a war between the haves and the have-nots, and the day will come when a person is not allowed to spend his money as he wishes.

I think this xkcd comic is really good:
http://xkcd.com/871/

On a more serious note, it can be good to budget one’s charity. Choose a dollar amount or a percentage amount of income or some other target, just like any other portion of what you spend. Then plan your spending around that. Like the comic, you don’t want giving to be a chore and something that causes you deprivation… if that happens you might stop giving at all.

By planning charitable giving first, just like you plan savings first, you should be able to spend guilt free, because your spending choices are being made at the expense of other spending choices, not at the expense of giving.

The question is difficult for me to answer because in some ways I cannot fathom spending 200 million on anything. It’s such a huge amount of money for the average Joe or Jane to contemplate.

But who I am to say what someone should or should not give to any charity, or how they spend money on their wants/luxuries? If it’s your money that you earned, then it is your decision to make. I would only hope that those that have so much would be willing to help those that have very little, or nothing.

I can’t overstate how much I’ve wrestled with this question in my life (i.e., in therapy, in my career choices, and where I live). I’m extremely familiar with Singer’s works.

Every decision to do something is a decision not to do something else. There are *always* tradeoffs. The decision not to acknowledge these tradeoffs is closely linked to the idea of existential bad faith: by pretending we don’t have choices, we deny our freedom. Life can be much more convenient this way!

People’s answers to this question will differ because they have (1) different models of how the world works (e.g., the dynamics of the ‘economic web’ you mention, how GDP scales with subjective well-being, whether there’s a God around to sort things out for us), (2) strong incentives not to feel very guilty, (3) different values to maximize (e.g., their own personal freedom versus the reduction of extreme suffering), and (4) a lack of desire to think too hard about these problems, perhaps driven by a lack of compassion.

“Some of you will argue loud and long that there aren’t any moral implications to spending.”

I can’t fathom this perspective. Posts like this and the few comments I’ve read (I’ll have to stop) make me feel so alone.

Our species faces a new level of challenge in cooperating with each other; so far, we’ve been selected to be able to cooperate at much smaller scales (i.e., groups of households and small countries), and we have some very difficult decisions ahead that will require high-level coordination. I worry about people who focus narrowly on themselves and their friends, who judge their consumption in highly normative ways (e.g., “If my friends are all doing it, why can’t I? If this is part of my country’s ‘dream,’ what’s wrong with it?”).

We’re a really interesting species, but there’s no need to believe we (Americans, humans, whatever) are immune to the simple rules that govern the populations of everything else on the planet. Populations drive themselves extinct all the time through fratricide and excessive consumption.

I can’t see how spending isn’t a moral issue. The next step is to get the laws in place (e.g., carbon taxes, labor protection in developing countries) so that we don’t have to agonize over every purchase; the price can signal all that’s relevant.

As a current seminary student in the ELCA church, this is a question my wife and I have struggled with. On one level I am a full time student and am paying off debt. On another end we love to travel. How we currently deal with this dilema is that we have decided to donate to those organizations that help deal with something that angers us – the sex slave trade in the U.S. It boils our blood that this goes on.

I would suggest that readers find something that boils their blood: animal abuse, homeless children, etc. Then set up a regular giving within your budget (and try to push it).

We donate, and yet are planning a trip to Europe next year. The only thing I hope for is that God will forgive me for my actions.

To some I suppose that I would appear to be selfish with my money. I tithe all income to causes I support but I do not go above that 10% mark ever.

I prefer to save my money for myself so that I will be able to own a home outright and provide good education for my children all the way through college. Am I somehow less of a good person because I prefer to invest in my own community and family? Personally, I don’t think so.

We don’t need people who can give 20 billion to AIDS in Africa necessarily. What we do need desperately is just good people in everyday life who support their own communities and are involved in them whether that be through money or time.

I live frugally because stuff doesn’t really make me all that fulfilled. I would much prefer to travel and see the world rather than buy expensive shoes and purses. But that’s just me.

I am so glad you brought up this topic on GRS. It’s great to see how many other people are, like me, wrestling with it and trying to do right.

We don’t hear about this much in our consumer-based economy and society, outside of church and maybe giving circles. There aren’t many ads urging us to be charitable (at least, not in comparison to the prime-time stuff urging us to spend to make ourselves happy in some way).

After half a lifetime of plenty of self-denial and extreme thrift, I’ve found in mid-life that I’m substantially happier and more pleasant to be around if I do satisfy some of my longings for interesting trips (often small trips), pretty things in my house, and some nice clothes.

I find that a few indulgences are often enough to boost my mood and make me feel more of a sense of abundance, rather than the constant irritation of scarcity.

That tends to make me a more giving person overall and definitely more pleasant to be around. I guess the trick is to scale it right, and also to include an intentional and significant giving component, as part of one’s expenses.

And also, to be involved personally in SOME way with people who are less fortunate — it kind of inoculates you against overspending and excess, and it puts you in mind of wants vs. needs.

I am a mentor to a child in a poor neighborhood and whose parents are absent, and seeing how little she and her family have keeps my feet on the ground.

So that’s an obvious way to keep it real and help understand “how much is enough”.

Also, I think living in a mixed-income neighborhood helps.

If you sequester yourself in a neighborhood of houses that are all in your own price range, you get a very distorted view of society, money, and a lot of other things.

It isn’t good for everyone in a neighborhood to be poor and it isn’t good for everyone in a neighborhood to be rich. That isolation has bad effects on both groups.

I’ve always found it interesting that various religions practice giving not just as a way to support others, but as spiritual cleansing.

I’m not Muslim, but I find the practice of Zakat interesting — each year, people have to give 1/40 of their accumulated wealth. It’s quite different from tithing because it’s not based on income, but on assets and savings as well. (Basic expenses like a modest home and car I think don’t count — but I’m not 100% sure).

The point is that there is nothing immoral about having wealth (gained through honest means, of course), but there is still the emphasis on giving part of the wealth to help those less fortunate in your community.

Like others here, I struggle with questions of spending and finding ways to give back. I’m not judging whether one religion or set of beliefs is better than another, I just think this Zakat is an interesting model.

The better question is, how can we remove guilt from the money question?

As I rose out of debt I struggled with this question (like many of us). I spent time thinking about aligning my spending with my values (overall). I decided that giving to others was a value of mine and like any other budget line I put a number on it – 10% of my take home pay. Then I worked through where the money was going to go. Overall I decided that one of my biggest values is education. Education is what separates me from many people who are struggling financially. I give some money every month to my grandmother who is in an assisted living home (this lets her go out to lunch, get her hair done, etc), and I put money in two 529 plans for one of my high school best friend’s children. She cannot afford to set money aside for their education because she is still paying off undergrad education bills. She couldn’t afford to go to grad school to qualify for better paying jobs in her field. This seemed like something I could do that would ultimately have a big impact on specific people’s lives, and was very much in line with what I value.

Ultimately I think the real question behind all of this (for me) is what is the purpose of prosperity? Why are we productive, and what are we to do with the proceeds? The answer (for me) has been to care for and improve the lives of me, my family, those I love, and my community. How far out the “community” extends is up to each of us. If all I have accomplished in my “charitable” giving is help produce two more well educated people in the world, I will feel that it was prosperity well spent.

I really liked this question. I work at a nonprofit, and one day I was reading an article about a popular musician’s annual salary. I did the math, and it would’ve funded our organization for the next 50 years! It was unbelievable! I couldn’t imagine what someone could possibly do with that kind of money, but this particular person wasn’t known as a philanthropist.

I think people with modest wealth have an intense opportunity to impact change. You can do it by choosing where you buy (do your shoes come from a sweatshop/does the store pay liveable wages to its workers?), what you buy (is this an environmentally responsible product?), etc. I’ve said that if I ever reached a point where I didn’t need to work to maintain a comfortable lifestyle, I would be a full time volunteer.

Ultimately, it’s about finding balance. At what point is there too much stuff? (I realize for everyone, this is different.) Live the life you were meant to lead, but try to lift up others along the way.

Great discussion!

For me this argument has about as much meaning as “if you have a baby instead of adopting, you are depriving a child of a loving home”. It’s your money, and you can do what you want with it. One should not do “good” to feel superior.

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=4078

The charity with the big building, Mercy Corps, has costs well under control. In order to recruit excellent charity executives and employees, it helps to have a nice building. And please, no one suggest that employees of a charity since they’re so virtuous, should work in a shack. It’s hard enough to get people to work for nonprofits. They’re doing more good by having an HQ over time, I’m sure.

So many of the comments here seem to be dwelling on how one donates their money. The topic is how one spends their money. In my opinion, capitalism (as it so often does) holds the answer here. I totally agree with everything Tyler said, but to add to his argument, I’d point out that if shipbuilders are underpaying their employees, then the employees would quit and go find a better job. Consequently, the shipbuilders would have to offer more money to their workers in order to recruit a workforce to meet the demand. The price of the product would go up, and demand would dictate whether or not the Speilbergs of the world are willing to pay the “fair” price.

If yacht-buyers think the yacht is overpriced, they won’t buy it, and the invisible hand of the market will push shipbuilder wages back down to where they belong. There’s no need to debate or regulate all of this – capitalism is a wonderful model that is basically economic democracy in action.

This, of course, applies to the broader question being asked by the letter writer. If a substantial number of people really care about organic this and fair-trade that, and living-wage widget factories in China, then the people producing those products will be able to do so while still generating a fair profit. If not enough people care, then they won’t.

I’m not picking sides, but I will point out that Wal-Mart is an extremely large, extremely profitable company, and it has built its entire model on producing the cheapest possible product, without regard to environmental concerns, wage fairness, or any other touchy-feely factors. They focused entirely on getting the price as low as possible, and the market has rewarded them richly for it.