Last year I was invited via Facebook to participate in Buy Nothing Day. Occuring every year on Black Friday, Buy Nothing Day is an effort to protest the rampant consumerism in our country as people make a pledge to (obviously) buy nothing that day. So while people are lining up at stores to get the “best” deals, others are saying no to that. Last year, I immediately said yes and didn’t buy anything on Black Friday last year.
This year I got the same invitation and I hesitated a bit.
You see, I’ve begun to think more about our economy, how it runs, and what we’re putting our money into. On one hand, I do think that we’ve become massive consumers who buy and buy to make ourselves feel full only to realize once we’ve got something that it doesn’t complete us and we “need” something else. So on that account, I wanted to participate in Buy Nothing Day. However, as our economy has continued to decline (as well as much of the rest of the world’s), I have watched as people stopped spending money they had previously which in turn meant businesses cut jobs which then in turn means people have less money to spend. Many are finding that the “safety” of the middle class is a myth (see a recent Washington Post article on this) and are visiting food banks and other charities for the first time. People are being laid off from their jobs and companies just aren’t hiring. I’ve begun to realize how much of our economy is built upon spending money.
Now, I say that and also begin to wonder a couple of things. First, perhaps we need to find other ways of employing people. Second, maybe we need this recession to help us revaluate how we spend our money and on what our economy is built. I’ve been revisiting Brian McLaren’s book, Everything Must Change, and one of the most important concepts he discusses is how we believe bigger to always be better and that our economy (and other things) are able to grow forever. This is simply not true. We have finite resources and no economy can grow infinitely nor be sustainable. I wonder if this recession is because we have exceeded the time when the inflated economy we had could maintain itself any longer and needed to collapse. I imagine it like a man holding up a wall – he cannot hold the wall forever, eventually his muscles can no longer support the weight of the wall and it will fall down. Perhaps this is where our economy is now… falling down after the muscles that have held it have lost the ability to do so.
So this brings me back to Buy Nothing Day – perhaps it shouldn’t be Buy Nothing Day but Buy Only What You Need Day. I need food – should I not purchase groceries? Should I not help to ensure that bagging clerk still has a job at the end of the day? I think we need to evaluate how we spend our money, not simply refuse to do so – at least right now in our current economy. We need to spend our money in ways that help support life, rather than take it away. But I think we still need to spend our money (on this I’m also thinking about the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25).
Anyway, I’m not an economist and I’m sure there are many intricacies of which I am simply not aware… but this is just where my mind has been lately.
Thoughts? Questions? Agree? Disagree?
