Is frugality the new cool?

Attention Goodwill shoppers; you may be on the cutting edge of a new social trend. According to the New York Times, Americans are responding to the recent economic downturn by pinching pennies and cutting up their credit cards. Now, a lot of them may not have much choice in the matter (there's only so much non-existent money you can spend, after all), but perhaps, just perhaps, we're seeing the end of decades of mindless mass-consumption and the return of respect for the value of hard-earned money and the appreciation of quality products.

Economists - and the mass media, corporations, and think tanks that employ them - are, of course, warning of dire consequences should Americans return to the days of pre-consumerism and start tending vegetable gardens in their back yards, mending their own clothes, fixing their own cars, or any of the other ways that traditionally resourceful people once used to save money. And of course there's always the possibility that this new-found frugality is just temporary, to be thrown out the window when the next spend-your-way-to-prosperity scheme comes along. But I think there's more to people's changing spending habits than just a credit crunch.

People, I believe, are finally waking up to the long-term effects of a society built around mass consumption and overwhelming novelty. Not just the depletion of natural resources and the damage to the environment caused by the manufacturing of cheap disposable crap, but the negative effects to the human environment. The frustration of planned obsolescence and the need to keep up with constant changes in technology. The anxiety of wondering whether you're investing money in the right company at the right time. The fear that you're educating yourself for a career which may no longer even exist when you graduate from school. The alienation of a political process that seems remote and distant.

I'm not arguing that pre-consumer society was a paradise. Mass production did allow, for example, more people to take up a musical instrument then might have otherwise done so, thereby enriching their lives. And mass media exposed truly talented artists like Duke Ellington, Elvis and the Beatles. But the masses no longer control the system of consumption. We don't buy things that will open us to new experiences, we just buy. Does a 60" plasma TV really make sitcoms any funnier? No, yet people go into debt to purchase one, simply because they've been told that it's the latest and greatest, or because government increasingly has the power to force them to through the elimination of "inferior" alternatives.

So don't be afraid to drive that 10 or 20-year old car, change your own oil or watch reruns of "Everybody Loves Raymond" on the old TV you inherited from your grandmother. If you're going to spend money, spend it on something that you can use, not just own, like a camera, or a guitar. Use the time you free up by not worrying about your finances to enjoy the company of friends and family. The pressure's off. Say it loud: I'm cheap and I'm proud!