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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by sunshine@slrpnk.net to c/solarpunk@slrpnk.net

Based on the excerpt from this Discworld book, what other items do you use regularly that would fit in this theory? (Boots and shoes are fair game!)

Text transcript for people who want it:

[The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.]

Bonus: suggest ways you can repair/restore your item/other people's items.

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[-] dub@lemmy.world 61 points 1 year ago
[-] Sheltac@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

It really is. I have a few friends who are not doing very well, and it amazes me the shit they have to pay for.

[-] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 38 points 1 year ago

My problem is I don't know what products are expensive because they are good, and what products are a scam. No idea how to even search to find out either.

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[-] TeaHands@lemmy.world 37 points 1 year ago

I see Sir PTerry, I upvote.

And hey, just sliding this totally smoothly into the conversation, did you all know we have !discworld@lemmy.ml (Lemmy / Kbin)

*sidles out awkwardly*

[-] sunshine@slrpnk.net 9 points 1 year ago

Super neat!! Thanks for the link. :) If anyone likes the style of writing, go look at the Discworld community. These books are great.

I'm hoping this quote can drive some critical thinking about sustainability, and maybe some discussion about how to better what people CAN afford/already have.

[-] xantoxis@lemmy.one 27 points 1 year ago

Car repair. Towing and fixing a car with a ruined engine is ten times as much as doing regular maintenance. And it's not just the dollar cost of oil changes and belts: When you are better off, you have the free time to run that errand to do those things.

Dental care, for almost the exact same reasons.

General healthcare has all of those factors PLUS if your general health goes bad you may not be able to work so now fixing it is expensive and you have no income.

[-] Jummit@lemmy.one 4 points 1 year ago

Car ~~repair.~~

Sorry, I usually don't make these shallow comments. But cars are just another way to accumulate money for the rich few. Transportation is the boot, and we can't afford good public transit and international railways.

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[-] cerement@slrpnk.net 23 points 1 year ago

@H3L1X reminds me of one rule from woodworkers/DIYers – buy a cheap set of tools, when one of the tools breaks, replace that one tool with a more expensive one (upgrading based on use)

[-] cyanarchy@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This works for all sorts of things, especially automotive tools, but there's one exception that I live by.

Don't cheap out on the things that come between you and the ground.

Your shoes, your socks, your tires, your bed, the chair you spend twelve hours a day in. Those are worth some investment. It pays dividends.

[-] H3L1X@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago

That is true, I do quite like that rule.

[-] HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago

Renting -

Buying a house is like having a bank account you can't access until you want to move. Renting a house is just paying into someone else's bank, and you end up unable to save for your own.

[-] 2Blave@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

The rich don't get rich by saving more or spending less: though it is an advantage when they choose to use it.

The rich get rich by exploiting the labor (or income from labor) of those less fortunate than them.

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[-] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 22 points 1 year ago

Boots, shoes, clothes, technology, cars, houses, furniture.

Everything.

[-] tiramichu@lemm.ee 17 points 1 year ago

Food.

If you don't have much money then it can be a lot harder to eat healthily, due to cost of fresh ingredients and time to cook, which is time you may not have.

This can lead to eating a lot of unhealthy and processed food, which then causes knock-on costs later with poor health, illness, and medical bills that aomeone with the money to eat healthily might have been able to avoid.

[-] whereisk@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

There's a reason why fast food companies have more shops per capita in lower socio-economic areas. For a lot of families asking them to "eat better" is like telling them "stop being poor".

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[-] H3L1X@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 year ago

Renting a house/appartment vs. owning is a pretty big one, same with renting vs owning most things.

Nice tools vs cheap tools. It really does seem to be everything, from clothes, to tools, to food and healthcare.

GNU STP.

[-] cerement@slrpnk.net 11 points 1 year ago

add insult to injury, banks not approving loans for homebuying even when the mortgage payment would be less than the current rent …

[-] PlaidBaron@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Home ownership bigtime. Yeah I have to do way more work to keep my house in good shape but every time I do it literally adds value to the place.

But I know Im damn lucky to own my own place. Not an option for many around the world.

[-] H3L1X@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

Yeah, the maintenance can be a pain, but it does add value, and it is pretty satisfying to improve things.

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[-] Okurok@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 year ago

My mother always says: we are not so rich to afford cheap stuff.

For exactly this reason

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[-] fidodo@lemm.ee 14 points 1 year ago

He didn't predict how bad it would get. Corporations have been at war against the concept of ownership for the poor and middle class. Everything is a subscription now so you can't even own anything and housing is too expensive to buy, you can only rent.

[-] Just_A_Human@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

"you will own nothing and be happy about it" a quote from the 'great reset'... A literal agenda from the international monetary fund (IMF). We have to resist that notion in everywhere or we risk accelerating our fall into the dystopian future that these greedy fucks are trying to set course to...

[-] Fluid@aussie.zone 13 points 1 year ago

Problem now is “luxury” brands, which is the same shit quality at a huge markup. Quality is often not even a consideration for producers these days.

[-] damnYouSun@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 year ago

In the UK you have to pay car tax which basically is a tax on vehicles which obstensively covers road maintenance.

If you pay monthly then you have to pay 12 units for one year.

However if you can afford to pay one lot all in one go then you only have to pay the equivalent of 10 units. Essentially you get two months for free.

Now presumably this is because it is easier to account for your budget if you get it all in one job lot right at the beginning of the year. So it is worth them giving you a economic incentive to do that. But loads of people cannot afford that so they end up paying more money.

Most people keep a car for what five ir six years? In that time the effectively pay an entire extra years worth of road tax if they pay monthly rather than yearly.

Boo.

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[-] frankPodmore@slrpnk.net 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I always thought that laundry was the best example of this.

Poor people go to the laundrette, which is expensive over time and time-consuming.

Less poor people buy cheap washing machines which are expensive to run and break sooner.

Rich people buy highly efficient washing machines which are cheaper to run and last for years.

And on top of that poor people buy cheaper clothes, which wear out sooner (as with the boots example) and dry their clothes indoors on hangers which, again, takes longer and also creates damp, unpleasant living conditions!

EDIT: Typos.

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[-] GregorGizeh@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

The system is set up against the poor. Not only is long term quality something you usually cannot afford for your purchases as with the boot example, things that were normal goods are now commodities people must have a subscription for (or buy the quality version). All the late fees, overdraft fees, fixed rate parking tickets, anything is set up to fuck over the little guy and keep him poor and running in his hamster wheel.

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[-] Amro@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

@sunshine It's very true. There are ways to break the cycle but being poor often means also not having the time to fix or pick up stuff. I have been living of a low income for years now. I think like 80% percent of the stuff I own has been free or second hand.
Clothes dryer, washing machine, dishwasher, oven, microwave, furniture, clothes etc. etc. Sometimes it's tedious and frustrating.
But I also didn't have to work full time or two jobs just to buy all that crap new.
It means I get to spend money on good shoes for me and the kids. Good mattresses. New clothes for the kids because social pressure dictates it. Food.
The rest I build, repair, trade etc. etc. If this capitalist society collapses I'm fucked, off course.

[-] sloppy_diffuser@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

Planned obsolescence is another problem to add to this. I've had coffee makers (thermal fuse won't reset), TVs (logic board and LED backlight), garbage disposals (internal seals), garage door openers (capacitor), and fridges (ice maker) all fail 1-2 months after the warrenty in the past 5 years.

Want to get a serviceable unit with readily available parts? Well you can pay 10x the cost.

[-] huskypenguin@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago
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[-] Otakat@reddthat.com 4 points 1 year ago

One of the interesting things about the second -hand market is that really good quality items survive two or three owners even, so someone who is knowledgable about quality items or who takes the time to research before getting things can actually be getting significantly better stuff than someone who is buying new.

That being said, being poor makes it hard to have the time or have the opportunity to learn about what is good vs what is bad quality. And people can get really ripped off by vendors who are selling bad quality but making it seems like good quality.

[-] Amro@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

@Otakat Yes. Sometimes it's very specific. I burned money on items that where damaged beyond repair but looked ok on first glance, or just from a different production run that had terrible quality control.
At the moment, mostly due to inflation, people with better income have discovered the second hand market. Which leads to increased prices at thrift stores and online marketplaces. Sometimes the prices in thrift stores are higher for cheap made in china stuff then getting it new in "dollar shop" like places. It's bizarre.

@sunshine

[-] keepthepace@slrpnk.net 7 points 1 year ago

House. If you can afford to buy one, it is much cheaper than to pay rent over decades.

Training. If you can afford to not earn money for a few years, training in a valuable skill will earn you much money.

More training. Sometimes you just need to stop earning money for a year.

Tools. It may be hard to choose good tools, some are overpriced for no good reason, but tools you work with instead of working around is a productivity booster.

BTW, this theory has a name in socio-economics, it is called the "poverty trap" (aka "it is expensive to be poor") it is not as much how the rich get richer (there are a lot of more salient mechanisms there) but more about how the poor remain poor.

[-] Wild_Mastic@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Oh wow did not expect to find a citation to a book I finished reading yesterday.

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[-] Twelve20two@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 year ago

Cloths for towels. Paper towels are convenient, but we've got 15 reusable ones that we can just throw in the wash afterwards.

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[-] Johem@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

It's Terry, so it's good. But as someone who buys expensive leather shoes due to fucked up feet and good shoes increasing the time until the hurt, it absolutely tracks. I've been using my 250€ leather shoes for three years now and they're still OK. 75€ standard sneakers I used before had holes in the soles within a year.

[-] bastian_5@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

I would say it's not so much that they managed to, it's that they could afford to spend less money. You cannot afford good food, so you eat crappy food and get sick, so you have to go to the doctor. You cannot afford good insurance, so you have to spend a ludicrous amount to get good care that will fix the problem, but you cannot afford that, so instead of a one time charge, you now have the worse prescription that still costs a bit, and it doesn't even keep you healthy, it just keeps you moving forward, barely. Because of your condition, you now can't even work as well as you could, so you get paid even less, all the while your health is deteriorating because the medicine you can already barely afford isn't actually what you really need.

How the fuck do you get out of that on your own?

[-] Just_A_Human@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

Thats what the concept 'conscious spending' tries to address and set up protocols to get out of the negative feedback cycle of having to constantly buy cheap shit only to have to replace it and double your cost.

https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/conscious-spending-basics/

The link above has much more details on this if y'all are interested.

[-] sxan@midwest.social 5 points 1 year ago

A key component of Vimes' theory is that he buys cheap boots because he can't afford the expensive ones. Conscientious spending assumes the person has a choice; it isn't an option for Vimes, or for many people.

There are many things that it makes sense to simply buy the cheap version of: things that'll be used infrequently, or which usefullness is unknown. Gadgets which a friend loves and recommends, but which end up being simply unused.

I haven't read the book you recommend; maybe it says all this. I do think, though, that for all the evils of cheap consumer goods, they've put much in the hands of people who would not otherwise be able to afford it.

[-] cerement@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

worse when a company puts out a durable product at a decent price, watches it become popular, then issues an “update” with crap durability and higher price

  • REI Adventures pants
  • Teva Mush flip-flops
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[-] ecotopian@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 year ago

In a somewhat paradoxical fashion, it would be cheaper to buy and own many things over an extended period of time versus renting them. However, pooling resources to buy just one of something and have it be accessible to a community seems like the more ideal sustainable approach.. But we also see perversions of the 'sharing' model with things like ride-sharing and AirBnB. Just something some of the comments (i.e. on laundry and tools) made me think about.

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this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2023
682 points (100.0% liked)

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