When I get the Sunday paper, the first thing I like to look at are the ad circulars. I love looking at the electronic items I might want someday and getting a sense of how much these things cost. I love a bargain and feeling like I got the best price, even if it means buying something that is last year’s hot item.
This being the holiday season, there are tons of circulars with gift ideas to help us decide what to buy for others. I can’t help but notice that lots of these items are pretty junky, and are presumably things we would never buy for ourselves. These cheap cologne sets, kitchy plant holders, and old DVDs are meant for other people, and the ads highlight how little they cost—typically between $5-$10, if not less.
I once knew someone who felt like she needed to get every last friend and acquaintance a gift. Each year, she would get me one of these bargain items, since her budget was pretty tight. It made me ponder the greater sociological meaning of these items (yes, we sociologists can think about the sociological implications of just about anything).
On a personal level, I had to feign excitement about an item I had no use for. I was grateful for the thought, but as a casual acquaintance she hadn’t made my gift list and I felt a bit guilty to receive something without giving.
I also had no idea what to do with the new object I had received. I could never regift the items, since that would simply pass the problem along to someone else, and I hated to throw stuff away. (I later donated the items to charity. My guess is they threw them away.)
This example may seem like a simple and frankly minor inconvenience that people face; after all, we should all be so burdened to make someone’s holiday gift list, right? Journalist Ellen Ruppel Shell, author of Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture, argues that super-low prices have serious economic and environmental costs that we might not think about when buying throwaway gifts for people on the nether regions of our gift lists.
For one, these cheap goods are typically imported from developing nations where people work in sweatshop conditions for virtually no money. These goods are often made in countries that have the most lax labor and environmental laws, frequently keep workers in extreme poverty, all while polluting the area. The items then have to be shipped halfway around the world, with significant environmental costs. Because this process is inexpensive for manufacturers, American workers’ wages remain low or jobs could be shipped overseas, all so we can have really cheap goods. Shell argues that in the end this cheap stuff costs us quite a bit. (Click here to watch Ellen Ruppel Shell speak about Cheap).
University of Pennsylvania Economist Joel Waldfogel suggests the whole shopping process itself is a waste of time and money. In Scroogenomics: Why We Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays, Waldfogel compares what buyers spend with the value that receivers attribute to a gift and estimates that the difference is upwards of $13 billion. (Click here to watch Joel Waldfogel talk about Scroogenomics). He notes that cash and gift cards can be a much more efficient transfer of wealth, and yet as he told the Wall Street Journal, “cash is in general a stigmatized gift.” When we give cash or a gift card, the recipient knows exactly how much—or how little we spent. Buying an item makes us feel like we can mask the dollar amount we spent.
I’m guessing that some of you are reading this and thinking, hey, I like getting and giving gifts! I have friends who love to shop, no matter why, when, and where, so the holidays are really fun for them especially. As I have previously blogged, consumption can be enjoyable and it is almost impossible to avoid being a consumer in our post-industrial society. But as Ellen Ruppel Shell concludes, we can become more conscious consumers. We might think about where the items we buy came from and the conditions under which they were produced. We can also think about our own financial situations and assess what we can truly afford to spend…and think about giving in ways other than just buying something.




