Ikea

In a blurb in the latest issue of The Atlantic, Ellen Ruppel Shell exhorts us to demonstrate responsibility in the face of economic difficulties by resisting the disposable nature of many of today's products and instead buying lasting quality. Her whipping post is Ikea -- the world's largest furniture retailer -- whom she takes to task for selling essentially disposable, low-quality crap under a thin veneer (pun fully intended) of striking design, while engaging in environmentally and ethically questionable business practices and being otherwise ungreen, all in the name of meeting a low price point. Well, having moved recently, and never really having owned any decent, or even coordinated, furniture, J. and I have been shopping at Ikea, and I can report that while relative to other stores, Ikea's prices are indeed somewhat lower, they are by no means cheap. Which brings up a side question -- why is furniture so expensive, anyway? Even $500 for a sofa seems excessive to me, and that's the low end, in the grand scheme of things. I mean, some wooden planks and polyester stuffing with some fabric stretched over it all? How difficult can it be?

But let's grant Ms. Shell her premise that Ikea is cheap. I've seen some gorgeous, heirloom-quality, artisan-built furniture. I have also seen its prices. Is that what we're supposed to buy during a recession? Well, both J. and I still have our jobs, have not had to take any pay cuts yet, and we live in a part of the country that seems to be weathering the recession better than some others. And even at Ikea, we have to be very careful not to overextend ourselves, buying one large item every month, if that. And The Atlantic wants us to spend five times the money in this economy? Thank you, Mr. Bennet, for demonstrating yet again how utterly disconnected the lifestyle coverage of your magazine is from the everyday reality of your readers' lives. There are far more egregious examples of the abiding cluelessness of the self-appointed cultural elite in the same issue, too.

But all that made me think of something else. Could we not say that the disposable nature of most of our personal belongings, especially furniture, however unsatisfying it may be to own, in fact contributes to the dynamism of the American economy? From an economic standpoint, we want our workforce to be as mobile as possible, right? The easier it is for people to get to where the work is, the more quickly the work will be done, increasing productivity. Americans move seven times in their lives on average, and we want to make all that moving as painless as possible. This is especially critical in a recession, when you should be far more willing to go where there is work than normally. So go ahead and leave all that low-quality, cheap furniture behind and go forth unencumbered. When you arrive, there's probably an Ikea there.