A few weeks ago, I came to think more deeply about what it means to own a Birkin Bag in this world. For those who are unfamiliar with the brand, Birkin bags are high-end luxury bags that range in price from $10k to $200k+. Victoria Beckham has a collection reportedly worth over $2M. I watched the power couple’s series, Beckham, on Netflix sitting in my house, marinating in the thought that her handbag collection was worth substantially more than the house I live in, and a few of her “lower end” handbags are worth substantially more than the tents that many people live in. That right there sums up a lot of what is wrong with the world: the rich getting richer, and flaunting their wealth to peasants (like me) who are consuming their content, watching their shows, listening to their podcasts, liking their social media and making them ever richer.
Owning a Birkin bag in a more virtuous parallel universe would be a hideous sign of wastefulness and disregard for what else could have been achieved with that money: How many malaria nets and thus lives saved? How many kindergartener’s educated in a developing country? How many medicines for a cancer patient who’s family are struggling to make ends meet with a terrible diagnosis? Even one student’s debt being wiped out in a developed country, if you’re feeling a bit nationalistic and want to keep the good closer to home. Essentially, SO many uses of $100K (the most expensive bag in her collection) would be more meaningful than one woman flaunting a handbag. And yet here we are immersed in and contributing to a culture that glorifies the most stupid uses of financial and physical resources.
Extreme wealth when there is extreme poverty is a symbol of exploitation.
Brown Girl Confidence
If only we could see the Birkin Bag for what it really is – a medallion of exploitation (and even more so with the animal abuse making one entails). Even if extreme wealth is not created through exploitation (though it very often is in some form), withholding it from better uses is another form of exploitation, one that is quieter and more socially accepted because “it’s your money”. By admiring and glorifying symbols of extravagance, we not only legitimize them but actively encourage people to aspire for them.
Wealth and Income inequality
“Regarding whether wealth inequality has gotten worse or better in the past 20 years, data and studies up until my last update in January 2022 indicate that wealth inequality has generally increased during this period” –My ChatGPT search November 2023
When I did a more organic search for data, it became clear it’s not that straightforward a thing to quantify. But we can get a decent order-of-magnitude sense. Princeton Economics estimates that the top 1% holds nearly as much wealth as the bottom 90% in the US. How did we let wealth inequality get to this point and not be out in the streets demanding a wealth tax?
The picture for pay inequality is pretty grim too. Take CEO pay as an example. The Economic Policy Institute notes that in the US:
- From 1978–2022, top CEO compensation shot up 1,200% compared with a 15% increase in a typical worker’s compensation
- In 2022, CEOs were paid 344 times as much as a typical worker in contrast to 1965 when they were paid 21 times as much as a typical worker.
How did we let income inequality get to this point? Undoubtedly, some workers create more value than others and one can argue that they “deserve” more for their extra creativity/ingenuity/skill/value to society. But do some workers create 344x as much value as individuals?! Really?! We have to draw the line at some reasonable level. It seems to be drawn at infinity right now.
It’s your money, spend it as you will – personal freedom as a blinder to morality
Not only are a small proportion of people making a ton of money but then they also choose to spend it in wasteful ways with little to no judgment about it from most people, and indeed often admiration. Personally, I can’t help but feel disgusted when I hear about how some rich people spend their money these days. Every now and again, someone will visit a rich friend/acquaintance and report back how big their house was. And instead of being impressed, I’m pensive. How contorted for one couple to own a 10-bedroom mansion. How wasteful to pay for fossil-fuel-based energy for the entire house to be heated and air conditioned, and a few hot-tubs and swimming pools of water to be filtered, when there are entire families that don’t have a roof over their head not only in developing but in developed countries. Right here in the Bay Area, people sleep in tents and die from the cold every winter less than a mile away from the partially-occupied mansions in Pacific Heights, San Francisco.
And how insulting when rich people say they have so much money they don’t know what to do with it, and spend their money upgrading their already amazing bathrooms or adding water features to their gardens, and it seems to never cross their mind that may be they should donate the majority of their excess wealth towards people or causes who actually need it? How is complete apathy towards the neediness and suffering of others so acceptable? It’s so acceptable that it’s considered rude, an assault on “personal freedom”, to suggest or even to judge how someone should spend their money.
We scroll on Amazon through the “most popular deals” out of boredom thinking “hmm what else can I buy for myself and for my family?” when we could be scrolling between causes to donate to, almost all of which would increase net happiness and reduce net suffering in the world more than my purchase of a new gadget on Amazon from yet another factory exploiting its workers. Alas, that wouldn’t help the Factory Owner’s pursuit of a Birkin Bag.
How did we arrive at the conclusion that the best way to run a society is “every person for themselves” and once you’re done taking care of yourself you have no responsibility to anyone else? Personal freedom can be a good goal for a society, but in a world where many people don’t have enough to even get by, we have to prioritize goals, and we should ask ourselves: is personal freedom the most important goal? Or is responsibility to getting everyone to a basic standard of living a more important goal?
Let us question it now. I think we should be asking for a wealth tax and much greater redistribution of wealth. Of course, ultra-wealthy people and corporations basically OWN the government so it’s sadly unlikely to happen (without a lot of well-organized activism). But let us, at least, lean into soft power that will slowly shift or encourage spending wealth in better ways. Let’s pick better things to admire in people than extravagance. Don’t look to me for a compliment for your third bathroom’s new theme makeover, but certainly expect my admiration for your donation to that fundraiser.
References
Birkin and other animal-derived bags come at the cost of a lot of suffering for animals:
Who Rules America has a lot of good data on Inequality in America:
https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/wealth.html
