JONTILLMAN.COM | part of the problem since 1976

This is a topic that has been bugging me for a while, and Kansas Simplicity’s recent post helped me to crystalize some of my thinking on the topic.

Frugality has nothing to do with economic thought, regardless of what we have been taught; from Adam Smith calling the frugal the genuine economic man and being promoted by Weber as the protestant driver of early capitalism. Frugality has been, and is, a non-economic tenet of any philosophy, Eastern or Western, that considers the ‘good life’.

In religious philosophy, frugality is a spiritual virtue and in secular philosophy, a rational virtue; to enhance human happiness. Almost all Continetal philosophy has held that frugal tastes and sustainable enjoyment go hand in hand. It is entirely seperate from the concept of economy in its primary definition of “careful management of resources”, and we would do well to not confuse the two concepts and do justice to neither.

The economic hijacking of the concept of frugality is purposeful and deliberate. By focusing on the instrumental value of frugality as a means to material welfare, economic thinkers introduced a shift in the meaning of frugality. Frugality becomes related to a savings rate and to an investment in future welfare. This process of instrumentalisation of frugality ends paradoxically with its elimination from the economic scene. Consumerism and material greed, just the opposite of frugality, are the basic drivers to improve wealth and lead to an erosion of the intrinsic and spiritual meaning of frugality.

From a philosophical point of view, frugality is a part of Ethics, as it is concerned primarily with concepts of sustainability and limits, in personal and civic life. Frugality is not a means to a Pareto improvement, and to treat it as such ignores the deep spriitual and philosophical framework that exists around frugality. Frugality is as concerned with too much talking as it is with too many possessions. Frugality has absolutely nothing to do with savings and investments.

I await your angry rebuttals