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Luxury
and Inflation Father Michael Jamail defines the sin of
gluttony more or less as follows: To
act beneath the beast, which would not offend the common good by consuming
more than it needs. Jamail’s definition seemed obviously to
apply to all consumption, not just eating.
For a long time I puzzled over how consuming more than I need could
“offend the common good.” I
could have given the money I spent in over-consuming to someone who needed
it. But that is just
"not helping"; it does no harm to the “common good,” per
se. One day
my Major Professor from grad school, A.J. McPhate, told me his economic
theory. Voila! There was my answer. His theory: Consider a hypothetical
community. Each person in
this community -- the doctors, the garbage collectors, everyone-- earns
exactly enough to just meet all his/her needs (and those if the
non-working members of his/her family):
physical needs, recreation needs, intellectual needs, retirement
needs, etc. Now, consider what ensues if the doctor decides that he wants a yacht (that he of course does not need). He hires a couple of the community’s carpenters in to build it for him. He then proceeds to do what he has to do to afford this luxury. He raises the fees for his services in order to make enough more than he needs to be able to afford the yacht. The carpenters/yacht builders decide to
build it as a “moonlighting” job so they can afford the increased cost
of the doctor’s services. To
be sure, if they work more hours per week than it takes to just keep up
with the increased cost of the doctor, they will be able to afford a
little luxury themselves. In
fact all the citizens have a chance to get ahead in this system in one of
two ways. They can work
longer hours or if their work is a precious commodity, like the doctor’s
(and if they don’t have moral qualms about it), they can dictate a fee
increase. See the cost of living going up?
And see how those who can’t increase their fees because the
market won't bear their
increases begin to sink into poverty?
(If somehow everyone could
keep up, it would just be inflation in both prices and wages equally, with
no net effect - the “rising tide” would
“lift all boats.”) Luxury
is directly related to the inflation (the "gluttony") in this
system and inflation disproportionately affects the powerless. The same seems to be true in our economic
system as well, only we have a propensity for not seeing the emperor's
lack of clothes when all we get to hear is the emperor’s version of the
truth or, of course, when we are the emperor.
Not rocket science, for sure, but it certainly, if painfully,
answered my question. No
comfort here for me! |