Why buying a luxury car is disappointing in a way buying three houses isn't
Hasan, a famous Twitch Streamer, recently spent two hundred thousand dollars on a luxury car. There is a periodic discussion about the ethics of this or that socialist being rich or spending money, and this episode has reignited that interminable debate. Normally I take the view that it doesn’t matter. Sometimes people get rich, and though perhaps we’d all like to think we’d give the money away, few of us would. However, I think this -buying a luxury car- is different, and wrong. Specifically, I disagree with the argument by this guy:
I think it really is worse to buy a 200,000 dollar Porsche than to own 3 houses.
I’ll start by saying I feel bad about this. Generally, I don’t like to criticize individuals publicly unless they’re truly rotten. I have no reason to think that Hasan is a rotten individual. I certainly don’t think he’s a grifter- he’s always been honest about money, as best as I can tell. However, I want to look at Hasan’s Porsche because I think this case brings up particular issues that are worth clarifying. It’s not as if a tiny blog such as mine is going to be doing any lasting damage to this firey star in Twitch’s firament.
There will always be wealthy leftists. This is unavoidable. Most of us, if we became wealthy, would not give up our money. Sure, maybe we’d give a lot to charity, family and friends. At least we’d like to think so, but the bulk of us would keep the bulk of it. There’s no point setting point policing moral goals that the majority of us would fail to live up to. That just makes us hypocrites. Bernie Sanders is wealthy due to his salary and book sales. One prudent way to store wealth is by buying multiple houses, and he has done so.
Conspicuous consumption is another matter though. Conspicuous consumption is the practice of buying higher quality goods than you need for the purpose of showing off. Very few people who become rich give the money up, but there are plenty of rich people who don’t engage in conspicuous consumption or at least not to the degree of buying a 200,000 dollar Porsche. In other words, not engaging in conspicuous consumption is a much more realistic standard to hold people to than giving away one’s wealth. It’s a standard Bernie has lived up to:
This is not the look of a man intent on flaunting wealth.
Now consider Hasan Piker:
That is the look of a man flaunting his wealth.
I should clarify something to avoid a possible objection to my argument. I’m not saying that our standard should be “you can be rich, but you can’t have nice things”- like I were some sort of puritan with a savings fetish, trying to prove I’m part of the elect.
Rather, there’s a difference between buying something because it is nice and enjoyable, and buying something because it makes you look cool and wealthy. If Hasan had bought some nice furniture or clothes or even a nice car that would be one thing, but I think that there is something in the nature of a Porsche which is intended to show off. It’s not for private enjoyment, it’s for public show. I admit that the line is often blurry, but I think that an honest appraisal of this case- and images like the above, suggests that the line has been crossed.
I should also clarify that I’m not necessarily saying that Bernie is off the hook. Personally, I don’t have a huge issue with Bernie owning three houses, but I can see arguments against that. What I am saying is that, regardless of whether what Bernie did was right or wrong, Hasan’s action is qualitatively different and worse.
I think we’ve established the following things:
Not engaging in conspicuous consumption, or at least toning it down, is a plausible standard. It can be done.
There is a difference between conspicuous consumption and privately enjoying nice things.
Hasan has engaged in conspicuous consumption.
In other words, we’ve established that it’s feasible to draw the line at conspicuous consumption and that Hasan has crossed that line. The final thing I want to consider is why we should draw the line there. Conspicuous consumption, or as it is sometimes called, the consumption of positional goods, has a number of antisocial effects. This is a research area of considerable interest to me and intersects with my Ph.D. thesis. There are papers in the literature claiming to establish that conspicuous consumption:
A) Is associated with inequality
B) Makes people unhappy
C) Undermines social solidarity
D) Causes poor health
E) Undermines satisfaction with incomes
F) Encourages individuals to get into debt to engage in conspicuous consumption
One counterargument that is often made against critics of conspicuous consumption is that if people are envious of your nice things, that’s their problem. There are a lot of different possible replies to this argument (it’s not a very good argument). My primary reply would be that once you start deliberately showing off, visually boasting about your wealth, you lose the right to complain when other people react poorly to that. You were trying to get a reaction out of them after all.
So, with all respect to @ExileGrimm and to Hasan Piker, I don’t accept the equivalence. I think buying a Porsche is worse.