The Culture of Cheapness

When money is all that matters, life is cheap.

I was checking out at K-Mart and the “impulse items” by the registers were those long-stemmed lighters you use to light a fireplace or candles. You could buy a red one with 1 oz of lighter fluid for $2.59. Or... You could buy a blue one that contained 2 oz of lighter fluid, had a big sticker on the package that said, “Twice as much fuel!” and cost $2.95. Which one do you think sold the best? Probably the one that offered “twice as much for 36 cents more.”

The choice seemed obvious—it was clearly a better value. I asked the woman at the register, “Did all these sell out?” and she looked at me like I was nuts. “Nobody wants those,” she said, shaking her head as if I was nuts. “Why not?” I asked, innocently enough. “Because they cost more!” she said, as if I was just too stupid. Honestly, how could I be so dumb? The cheaper one was, well, cheaper.

My problem is that I’m used to stores like Target, Costco, Marshall’s and Ross. Stores that value quality—good products at good prices.

But Wal-Mart and K-Mart have only one value: cheapness.

Not inexpensive but cheap. Not good. Not desirable. Just cheap.

Places like K-Mart and Wal-Mart based everything on cheapness. That’s the only value they value. This belittles and cheapens everything in its path.

• EMPLOYEES ARE CHEAP: they don’t get decent wages or benefits, they're dehumanized.
  
• MANUFACTURERS and their laborers are cheap. They’re squeezed to death and forced to hire out to sweat shops in Asia so they can sell for ever lower prices. More people dehumanized.
  
• EVERYBODY SUFFERS ON THE PATH TO CHEAPNESS. Everybody's dehumanized.
  

LIFE BECOMES CHEAP—When saving thirteen cents becomes your main value, then you lose sight of morals—like the other people you had to injure along the way.

If you truly want the lowest possible prices, there are countless thrift stores that let you buy good items at prices 1/10^th of what they cost at Wal-Mart—and your money goes to non-profit, charitable organizations at the same time. You save money by doing good. It’s true moral values at work in the economy.

CHEAP is just another word for contemptible, despicable, shameful, shoddy, inferior, second-rate, substandard, stingy, miserly, mean.

This is the polar opposite of Loreal’s “because you’re worth it.” These stores drum in the message you aren’t worth it. That’s one of the most demoralizing things you can tell someone.

A few years ago my friend’s marriage was falling apart, and so was his car. He went to replace it with a new, low-cost Toyota, but when he brought it home, his now ex-wife said to him, “This is too nice, you don’t deserve this.” It’s not like he bought a Cadillac, he bought a low-end Toyota, but the point was clear—he was unworthy.

That’s what Wal-Mart and K-Mart tell their customers. you aren’t worthy. It’s demeaning and more than that dehumanizing and de-moralizing.

No wonder people are becoming confused about what “moral values” really mean. They are being bombarded with negative messages—not just the traditional advertising of inadequacy, but a constant and steady mantra of how little they are worth.

Go to one of these stores and look around. Under the acres of glaring florescent lights if you stop and really look you’ll find it an eye-opening experience—so ugly, so base, so, CHEAP, that it just deadens you.

It teaches you that money is all that matters, and that cheapness is the ultimate virtue, no matter how immoral the price.