David from Low Budget Life posted the most fantastic comment on consumer debt a few days back, and I thought I'd flash it up here on the site proper. The following argument certainly rings true with myself and all the friends I have around me…..
<1>The consumer debt mountain is certainly responsible for fuelling the consumer frenzy, which probably start in the very late nineties and peak around 2002-2003 and has perhaps faltered a little since then with retail suffering, rapidly rising bankruptcies, accumulating unemployment.
If you think back to our grandparent's generation thrift and frugality were the dominant way of living. The baby boomers brought a massive materialism to society, which has probably got worse with Generation X/Y.
However, the Boomers seemed to strike it lucky by growing up with a period of rabidly growing prosperity the like of which may never be seen again in the UK. They had living wage jobs for life, received the full benefits the generous welfare state, free education, and had the option of buying a council property for a peppercorn price or else had their mortgage paid effort-free by high 70s and 80s inflation. When Thatcher sold off the council houses, allowed aggressive American style lenders into a deregulated market causing house prices to fly into orbit, again the boomers won big
.
Small wonder even blue-collar families could put three modern Ford cars on the drive, have big tellies, consumer goods, and holiday abroad. As a generation, the boomers were - comparatively speaking - rolling in disposable income. Women when out to work, initially not merely to cover the bills in a sweat as happens today, but to improve 'living standards' of the family (AKA buying more and more and more flashier stuff).
Generation X/Y grew up in this culture. Back where I grew up if your Dad did something skilled-working class or lower middle class you lived in a big airy semi or detached house. If you were poor your family lived in a reasonably spacious council house. Kids from council estates were always good to know as they always had satellite, VCRs (with all the latest pirate releases) and big hi-fis in there homes years before anyone else. If your Dad was an officer in the armed forces, a senior manager for M&S, or ran a small works on the local industrial estate you lived in a huge detached house with big double garage and large gardens. Some Mums worked, some didn't, but if they did work it was usually something part-time and not too strenuous.
Now in much of the South of England - especially the South East - if you young or youngish you'd need to have a well above average salary to afford to live in an ex-council house. Your partner would need a full-time, serious, high-stress job as well just to cover the costs. Having a kid would seem pipedream if you wanted one, as you're already maxed out. As many companies have downsized, deskilled and offshored over the last decade younger workers have less chance of landing a good job anyway. So many of my uni peers failed to land 'graduate' jobs and started in positions they could have wound up in with A-levels. So, all in all, there's a big chance as the baby boomers kids now aged 20-32 will struggle, as a whole, to attain the same standard of living in many respects as the 'poor kid's families' I knew growing up.
A lot of Generation X/Yers are waking up to this reality but a large number feel they have AN ABSOLUTE RIGHT to the kind of lifestyles their parents enjoyed and are using debt to make up the shortfall between reality and their desires. Worse, they are probably far more brand-orientated than their parents and want everything their parents had PLUS all the funky branded fashions, cool homes with magazine-like interiors, ipods, technowidgets, and slimline mobiles. A massive inflation of needs.
We need to wake up - our parents lived in a period of unprecedented growth in opportunity, while the kids live with a McDonaldisaed job market, globalisation where workers have to compete with low-paid workers in far off lands, student and consumer debt enslavement, a dishonest inflation measure that cuts our pay each year, no social housing and huge house prices. Overall we're poorer - much, much poorer, and plummeting prices on DVD players, iPods and Primark sweatshop clothes do not alter that reality..
As more young people become debt-slaves to the bank and end up bankrupt a lot of people are going to realise their heroic 'consumer confidence' in support of Gordon Brown's thin-air debt economy has done them no favours at all.
8 Comments:
You state that you are against Brands and yet you seem so anxious about living without them and how you will be viewed. We all know that you are brand aware, with the money to fund your habit and surely you have the ultimate excuse to shun the brands ie. a book deal. I wonder therefore if you are merely making a statement that you are above the consuming masses. Are you making a comment against the intrusion of aspirational brands upon our everyday lives or are you merely trying to score intellectual brownie points amongst your comtemporaries?
Hello
I understand that, without reading the blog in full, or knowing exactly what is in the book, that you might think this project is an excuse to 'score intellectual brownie points amongst my contemporaries'. If you do take the time to read through the blog, you'll see that this really isn't the case. Burning all my possessions, embarking on long term psychotherapy and ostracising myself from my profession would be extremely long lengths to go in return for brownie points. If you look at it from that perspective, I think you'll find that comment is rather flimsy, and verging on the offensive.
The anxiety you are picking up on has been discussed from day one, and is an essential part of the book… a brand obsessive is deciding to give up the things he loves dearly in search of a more wholesome life. There would be no point in me writing this book if I had no emotional attachment to the stuff.
earn money - tramadol cool blog :)
Tyler Durdan said :- The things you own end up owning you. I've always liked that line!
Addiction to the perception of quality and status can only be cured if the ability to purchase is removed.
I'm not a brand person, I've got some nice nike trainers and a couple of designer shirts. The thing is I prefer to spend money on many things rather than just a lot of money on minimal things, I compromise on brand and often surprise myself with the quality of unknowns.
I hope your brand-detoxification goes well, as you will be richer both finacially and as a person. Your style will no longer be dictated from the inside covers of a magazine, enjoy what you have don't enjoy having what you have.
As a side thought it might ease your mind (and increase your publicity) if instead of burning stuff you auctioned it off on ebay and gave the money to charity.
Good luck..
Suprisingly, your comment by David from 'Low Budget Life' totally sums up my feelings on the state of affairs as it stands today. I often wonder how with a well paid job and good career prospects that I can still only just scrape on to the bottom of the housing ladder and why my parents, whose combined income is less than my own have a life that I can only dream of - a 5 bedroom home, two cars on the drive, regular foreign holidays. However, I also see that where as my parents generally buy something that 'will do the job', or because it 'looks nice', I have fallen into the 'brand trap'. Maybe if my spending had not been so frivolous in previous years on labelled brands, I would probably have had substantial savings by now and a hefty mortgage deposit, which would have lightened the blow in today's times of forever increasing property prices, whilst salaries stagnate.
Luckily, like yourself, I have realise that brands are not a necessity, they do not make you a happier person (well maybe only for a second) and they certainly make your bank account lighter. Whilst brands are pretty much impossible to avoid, I have made a concerted effort to ignore the advertising and labelling and instead rely on my own judgement, rather than that which others tell me is the right thing to be buying, eating, wearing or driving.
So, although I do not necessarily agree with some of your methodologies behind what you are doing, generally I say 'good on you' and maybe the 'Neil Boorman' brand of people can be born that do not rely on labels and advertising to make their decisions but instead do so based on their basic needs - food, shelter, warmth, clothing and entertainment.
ONE VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION...Having read through your blog, I am not sure if you have stated if there is a timeline for this experiment (i.e. you will be brand free for 1 year) or if this is now going to be a total lifestyle choice for you until your dying day. If it is the latter, then well done. If it is the former, then I think you are purely raising attention to get yourself a book deal and potentially more cash to spend on 'branded goods' once your experiment ends.
Good Luck!
hi neil,
just saw the article on the bbc website - i'm in america. i have to say, it is inspiring to read what you are embarking on. i own only enough stuff to go in two suitcases and it is pretty freeing. i do yoga as well and i find that breathing, simplifying, and embracing are excellent paths to take. there is a book that might interest you - called The Power of Now, by eckhart tolle. it has helped me out a lot! sort of froufrou at first but it gets quite good. peace to you on your journey, and remember, BREATHE.
(my email: abananafish@gmail.com)
Just think there will be a lot of people inheriting houses from thier parents when they eventally die.
The average price of a shit hole (terrace house)is 200,000 pounds, give or take 50,000 for regional variation. Thats like London and Tokyo prices, only were talking about the rset of Britain.
So generation x/y will be inheriting wealth. But for some they will be poor as fuck when they retire.
Will you become a lesser person by going brand free. Will others regard you will less respect/stature.
You might look very bland to potential employers. (don't think you'll have this problem because of your rep)
Do you have a car (other blogger mentioned this) You can only debadge it. Or have something that is considered awful as a brand.
The shape of a car (or item) can be a brand in itself. e.g. bmw grill
perhaps someone has already pointed this out to you (I can't really be bothered to read your whole blog) but what makes Innocent Smoothies and the like evil brands but Canongate Publishers, who wrote you a fat advance cheque, fine and dandy? or should we all have our own bonfires of your book when it finally comes out and we buy it in WH Smith and all those terrible branded bookshops? Enjoy Hong Kong- hope you're not going on a branded airline, but flying your own microlite.
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