In the first post on this experiment, I asked people to list the things that they are most tempted to buy for themselves.
Obviously, taking a hard look at my list and paring it down substantially is the first step in reducing my consumeristic desires.
However, I don’t think it can stop there, because ultimately, we do buy stuff for ourselves, whether we should or not.
That’s why I’m proposing the 100% Self-Tax on Unnecessary Stuff. Here’s how it works:
1. You can buy whatever you want
2. However, you have to contribute an equal amount of money to a good cause, preferably one that benefits the poor (such as Kiva or the Mvule Tree project)
Simple, right? Some advantages of this scheme:
1. Materialism becomes a force for good, because every bit of junk you buy means you are also helping someone in need
2. You buy less junk, because everything ends up costing twice as much
Example: I really would like to have a cool new phone, like the ones shown in the last issue of Wired. If, say, a $700 smartphone (which I can’t afford anyway) cost $1400, I would be even less likely to buy it.
What do you think?
You know what would be cool? A service that let you save money (by sending in payments) for a specific item. When you have twice the cost of the item in your account, it’s ordered for you, and the other half is sent to the charity you specified.
It would probably be difficult to get people to trust such a service with their money, but it would be cool to have.
One challenge would be deciding what’s “unnecessary” and what isn’t. I’d be tempted to label a lot of stuff “necessary” for some reason or another, e.g. business use or efficiency.
brilliant. i really like it. end the consumerist captivity of the church!
[...] This strategy is incalculably brilliant. We can have something we want (and hey, Americans want a lot of stuff) while paying for someone in the third world to have something they need. It’s not unlike my proposal for the 100% self-tax. [...]