Book Review
“Of making many books there is no end. . . “ Ecclesiastes 12:12 NRSV
The Vice of Luxury: Economic Excess in a Consumer Age
by David Cloutier. Georgetown University Press, 2015.
Reviewed by Chris Caldwell
Jimmy Carter’s idealism seems about as much at home on today’s political landscape as a bison at the beach, which is why it’s a tad jarring to see a Carter quote lead off David Cloutier’s The Vice of Luxury. But the shock gives way to—dare I say it?— awe when we hear Carter’s prescient thoughts from the oft-maligned “Malaise Speech” of 1979:
“We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.” Carter warns of danger ahead: “Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.
Whether that road leads to failure is debated; but that our nation has chosen that road is obvious. For this ailment, Cloutier offers questions aimed at a remedy: What is too much? What is excessive? Why? More importantly, why not emphasize morally disciplined spending as a way to approach problems and effect change?
Cloutier’s stock-in-trade is character ethics, or virtue ethics. For him, healthy ethics is internal, not external, because looking to external forces to solve a problem excuses personal moral accountability. Public policy is not his leverage point, and neither is the nature of the Church or its teachings. But the quote is Jimmy Carter’s, and he is appealing to individuals to collectively effect change by reforming how we view and respond to luxury and its attendant risks. Cloutier notes that early Christians deemed both greed and luxury dangerous.
Today, we still shun greed but accept luxury as an amiable comforter. This first passive mistake allows luxury to sidle up to us unnoticed. He next looks to “happiness studies” and other studies to show that luxury doesn’t deliver the promised life satisfaction, but instead “degrades us, our work, and our communities.” The philosophers among us will enjoy in this portion of the book his recounting the battle between Hume’s utilitarianism and MacIntyre’s practical reason.
Moving on from the historical and philosophical toward the theological, Cloutier shows how luxury spawns “neglected sacramentality” and “blocks a spirituality of material goods.” My Baptist mentor, James Hatley, once told me that Catholic chaplains got him through World War II, because their spirituality was rooted more in reality. This nicely grounded section challenges us to weigh the moral decisions we make with every purchase, and to see how those decisions shape us and God’s world.
Next comes the economic debate about whether luxury really helps the economy. Here he defends some tough terrain. We preachers extol the virtues of thrift and modest consumption, but economists point to the havoc we’d wreak if our parishioners began listening en masse. (They don’t seem alarmed by the prospect of this happening soon.) He makes a good point, but this challenge to his thesis remains significant. Cloutier gets around to defining “luxury” about halfway through the book as follows. For Cloutier, luxury is:
The disposition of using surplus resources for inordinate consumption of private goods and services in search of ease, pleasure, novelty, convenience, or status.
That cumbersome explanation probably demonstrates why you don’t see Cloutier being interviewed on TV. But it also reveals the nature of the book—a case put forth carefully and thoroughly. The final chapters ask who has “too much” and how much “too much” is. It turns out that many more people have access to luxury now than they did only 100 years or so ago. Of particular interest to Christians is the difference between Jesus’ day and ours. In ancient Rome, only three percent of people had significant surplus resources, and only up to 15 percent had modest surplus resources. Compare that to roughly 30 percent in each of those categories today. As for how much is too much, he aims for a middle ground between harsh asceticism and corrupting luxury. That sweet spot is found in the vicinity of $50,000 in annual income, which is what Cloutier takes as the money needed to provide the basic necessities of American life.
Having more than that is not in and of itself wrong, but it moves us into the land of risky ethical choices. He concludes by defending a few virtuous forms of spending beyond necessities, and signs off by inviting us to “resist with discipline and respond with hope.”
Cloutier typifies the diligence and careful argument I have come to associate with Catholic scholars, which means the book is not a quick or easy read. It is, however, clearly written, although Cloutier has the scholar’s bad habit of sometimes burying vital statements mid-paragraph.
The ultimate question, of course, is whether his book will have an impact. Will his view carry the day in the contemporary United States? Well…did Jimmy Carter defeat Ronald Reagan? Even so, at a time when only a true dolt would look to Washington for help in reining in American selfishness, Cloutier offers real steps Christians can take to effect change, no matter where political currents take us.
May his tribe increase, and may our constantly ginned-up wants decrease.
Chris Caldwell is senior pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky.
