In defense of cheap things

A version of this story originally appeared in the Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up here!

We live in a consumerist society. But at least speaking for my own social circles, we also live in an anti-consumerist society: We purchase lots of things, and we also feel vaguely guilty about it and brag about all of the ways we do without. (Buy secondhand! Get things off a Buy Nothing group! Reuse! Recycle!)

Some of this anti-consumerism is driven by concerns about work conditions in the developing countries we trade with, and I certainly think improving work conditions in those countries should be a high global priority. Some of it is driven by environmental concerns, and I would similarly rejoice at a carbon tax that tried to capture the externalities of our consumption.

But I think some of the anti-consumerism is driven by less noble motives. The wealthier you are, the more accessible the alternatives are to buying things off Amazon. You can afford to get products custom-made for you, or make them yourself; you have more leisure time to go pick things up off Facebook Marketplace or drive up and down half the coast thrift shopping.

Most people can’t. For them, the ability to purchase cheap consumer products at affordable prices is life-changing. And I think that, as the Trump administration tries to rationalize its tariffs by assuring us that we don’t need affordable goods, it’s high time to acknowledge that, in fact, it is a good thing when goods are affordable.

It seems odd to write a defense of cheap things at all. Americans do, overwhelmingly, buy things on Amazon and on its even cheaper Chinese competitors. Keeping prices low is one of the most important issues to voters.

In practice, everyone wants cheap consumer goods, everyone votes for cheap consumer goods, and everyone chooses cheap consumer goods. But, generally, they do it with a lot of hand-wringing.

I wrote earlier this week on X about some of the things that cheap consumer goods have made possible in my life and for my family. I run a civics class at my kids’ school; there are 10 kids, and purchasing 10 of anything adds up quickly. But because consumer goods are cheap, I was able to buy equipment for papermaking when we wanted to learn about papermaking, model trees and people for our talk about urban design, dress-up costumes for the occasional special lesson, and much more.

I can try a hobby I’d otherwise never try if it were a $1,000 outlay to get the equipment my (large) family needed. I bought plastic dice when I wanted to get into Dungeons & Dragons. I don’t have to jump down my oldest daughter’s throat when she inexplicably manages to rip the hem off every single dress she owns because we can afford to replace it.

My family is wealthy; we could make do with higher consumer prices. But a lot of families cannot. And even for the well-off, lower consumer prices mean I can donate 30 percent of our income to charity and give my kids good lives and save for retirement.

People on X were quick to assure me that all this is overconsumption. I could sew my kids’ Halloween costumes from scratch, someone told me. Why buy dice to play D&D? Don’t you know you can use a dice-roller app on your phone? (Another commentator objected in my defense to that response that “just own a phone” is perhaps not the most anti-consumerist of sentiments; the first commentator said anyone can get a phone because you can finance it.) Have I borrowed from my neighbors? Am I in my local Buy Nothing group?

I am in my local Buy Nothing group; I do borrow from my neighbors, and lend to them.

Nonetheless, access to cheap consumer goods makes my life wildly better, and it makes things accessible that otherwise wouldn’t be possible at all for me. I think some of the responses I received were less about how to live in harmony with the planet (for which living in a walkable neighborhood and not owning a car matters far more than buying things off Amazon) or how to improve economic conditions in poor countries (for which free trade is actually one of the best tools we know of) and more about if they represented a reflexive disgust of each other’s consumption habits.

And so I’m anti-anti-consumerism, at least in its current form. It’s full of harsh judgment of other people for not sewing their children’s outfits by hand, which is willfully ignorant of all the ways that — even if you personally rely on thrifting and Buy Nothing groups — your lifestyle is made possible by the fact that consumer goods are affordable.

I think it’s good when consumer goods are affordable; I think it’s good when people on a very limited income can still buy a pile of Christmas presents for their kids; I think it’s good that people can be financially responsible and also have lots of hobbies and fund lots of activities for their kids and their kids’ friends.

The tariffs will make our lives worse

All of this is a major reason why I think the tariffs are extraordinarily bad. (One estimate on the tariffs as of Thursday — which, of course, may change any moment — is that they amount to a $4,400 tax hike per household.)

I don’t think that hiking up the price of consumer goods will make our trading partners overseas better off, and I think it’ll make our lives worse and more difficult, impacting the people who are struggling to get by most profoundly. I think our society is so wealthy that in some ways we’ve lost sight of why, yes, material things do matter, and their inexpensive availability is something to celebrate.

That celebration need not be unnuanced or clueless. Each week on Shabbat, my family says the traditional blessings and sings a song that’s not at all part of the traditional Shabbat liturgy, Vienna Teng’s “Landsailor” — a love song to trucks and trains and cargo ships and the global supply chain, a hymn of celebration for deep winter strawberries and the abundance that has made every person in America richer than a medieval king.

It is also about the price in human suffering, animal suffering, environmental damage, and danger we’re inviting as we build a world increasingly powered by people and sacrifices we don’t see. But the spirit in the song is one of joy and celebration, tempered by awareness of the bigger picture — not one of condemnation, contempt, or disgust.

Right now, it’s a MAGA talking point that affordable goods have somehow corroded our society and we have a patriotic duty to accept high price increases in the service of Trump’s vision. But their argument has a lot in common with the loathing of the American consumer on the left. I am generally in favor of a world where we tax externalities and ban forced labor, but I want a world where more people can consume like Americans, not a world where no one is. The good is something to celebrate, and abundance is a form the good takes. It’s also something that frees us up to tackle the world’s ills in both their ancient and modern forms.