cash only

Nov. 9/2007 – Calder brings up the massive problem of consumer credit in his article “Financing the American Dream”. The lamentations of journalists and social theorists in the 1920s and 1930s that the credit system represented a breakdown “in the moral nature of economic decision making,” (Calder 24) have become ‘just the way it is’. We don’t bat an eye at casting ourselves into debt for the purpose of immediate gratification. When we sign the contract with VISA and authorize that first big purchase, we sign off a great deal of our freedom, in a way. What is presented to us as an idealized ‘opportunity’ is in reality a self-limiting pit of irresponsibility, worry and despair.

I’ve always been afraid of the credit system, as I don’t fully understand it and I’m really cheap. I got my first credit card when I was 18, and on the advice of an elder I bought a chocolate bar, paid it off, and destroyed the card. I guessed that meant I had perfect credit or something, but I obviously didn’t, as when I tried years later to get a credit card based on my perceived need to rent a hotel room, I was rejected twice.

Every year on Buy Nothing Day, the Adbusters holiday which falls on ‘Black Friday’ (the Friday after American Thanksgiving, the busiest shopping day of the year), celebrants stage diverse demonstrations against excessive consumerism. One of the most striking actions is a credit card cut-up service, where people stand in front of major department stores and malls, offering to destroy the credit cards of passersby. Surprisingly, this tactic seems to work from time to time, with common reports of several cards being destroyed at a given location. This is encouraging, as it illustrates the fact that some people still understand the value of thrift (or alternatively, it may illustrate nothing more than that Americans carry more cards than they can use). Calder argues that thrift, once a universally respected value, is now seen as ‘un-American’, and I agree; most of my consumptive habits are dictated by frugality, and when I look around while walking downtown in any metropolitan city, I can see that my values don’t fit with the conspicuity of Western excess. My values aren’t respected as ‘old fashioned’, but discouraged as ‘outdated’.

I do have a credit card now but I’m afraid to use it. As I like a bit of loose footing, I am actively fighting to stay out of debt so my place on the treadmill isn’t secured for life.