An unpopular virtue and democracy

Thrift is an unpopular virtue today. But I think it might be an index virtue — a marker that shows the relative health of democracy.

The value people place on thrift comes and goes. People today mistake it for greed, meanness, stinginess. In that usage, a thrifty person fails to tip well.

That’s an unhelpful way to look at things.

Thrift stands not against generosity but against waste. It is about the stewardship of resources. It acknowledges limits and emphasizes conservation of limited goods. To put thrift in action requires paying attention and taking care.

If you’re fabulously wealthy, you don’t need to be careful. You can be heedless. But if you’re a small farmer, like Hesiod in ancient Greece, or a small businessman, like Ben Franklin in colonial America, you have to be careful.

Hesiod lived before democracy prevailed in Athens. In his day, most communities were aristocracies, ruled by the “best” people. “Best” meant wealthy, people who didn’t have to work and who had no practical reason for conserving resources. They wasted things and flaunted their waste.

The farmers who had to be concerned about the wise stewardship of limited resources didn’t much care for the “best” people. As Hesiod put it,

It is the idle who are hated.

That thinking is out of style. Today, instead of despising the idle rich, we are taught that to despise the poor. We are taught that steps to conserve limited natural resources are to be despised.

And so, in some circles, people who recycle are ridiculed. So are people who advocate for public education and libraries as a way to be good stewards of our human resources. A large minority of citizens in this democracy are followers of a billionaire who is conspicuous for his wastage, rather than for his thrift.

And so I think Hesiod might have been on to something. Thrift is a value linked to ordinary people, rather than to aristocrats. When ordinary people lose a sense for that value, it’s trouble for democracy, the rule of the people.