The 'stingy poor' stereotype that hides a rational choice

The 'stingy poor' stereotype that hides a rational choice

In an age of conspicuous consumption, one type of citizen has become a target for criticism: the person with no robot vacuum, who pays in cash, uses a six-year-old phone and avoids restaurants. They are labelled poor, antisocial and odd. But the economic evidence suggests that, perhaps, they are the only one reading the rules of the game correctly.

The catalogue of the financial 'chimpanzee'

The signs are varied and specific. For instance, anyone who argues that a 20,000-pascal robot vacuum with mapping is an unnecessary luxury —or that a bank's 10-euro annual fee is abusive— is instantly dismissed as an idiot. The same goes for those who prefer to pay with banknotes to avoid digital surveillance, or who haggle over the resale price of a Playmobil on Wallapop. A pattern emerges: an aversion to anything involving a financial cost or a surrender of privacy.

Behind the frugality, a context of financial repression

This attitude does not stem from poverty, but from a clear-eyed reading of the environment. In a context of inflation eroding savings, jobs sustained by state investment and negative real interest rates, the 'ant' who saves through deprivation is not mentally ill, as they are portrayed, but a rational agent discounting the future. And the 'grasshopper' splurging on 50-euro restaurants and taxis everywhere may be living a borrowed fiction.

The battle for dignity in consumption

The debate exposes a generational and class divide. People talk of 'arrested development' in forty-somethings playing Pokémon on their phones, contrasting it with the image of those who 'evolve' and 'dabble in everything'. But those who refuse to keep up appearances —the ones who would rather cook at home than pay for a mediocre paella, or keep a car without electronics— are claiming a sovereignty the market does not grant. The question left hanging is: who is really free in this economy?