When You’re Broke, You
Love IKEA, Until . . . Oh No
In
two weeks, I’ll be moving from my large, shared apartment near downtown
Cincinnati to a much smaller space in
cornfield-and-college-kid-populated Bowling Green, Ohio. To ease my
anxieties over such a move – away from my significant other and his dog,
which has become my dog, too; away from close friends and a vibrant
neighborhood I’ve grown to love; away from the unique architectural
details, hardwood floors and two spacious bedrooms of my current place –
I’ve channeled my energy into making the new place in Bowling Green a
home.
Doing so has been no easy task. As a grad student, summers mean
stretching my last school-year paycheck as far as it can possibly go.
You know those little action figures they used to make, with those long
stretchy limbs? Stretch Armstrong, I think he was called? Yeah, that’s
what my last paycheck looks like right about now. So it goes without
saying that I’ve been shopping at IKEA. I love its warehouse full of
walk-through fantasy rooms and giant collection of cheap throw pillows
and wall art. I spend entire afternoons there and emerge with giant blue
(reusable!) bags full of stuff and feel pretty good about it, because I
rarely spend more than $50 a trip.
Then, Ellen Ruppel Shell and Stephanie Zaracheck of Salon had to
go and break my heart. According to Zaracheck’s piece titled “IKEA
is as bad as Wal-Mart” which discusses Shell’s book
Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture, IKEA is, well, as bad as
Wal-Mart. Despite its progressive, environmentally-friendly vibe and
stylish offerings at decent prices, IKEA is perpetuating the same cheap
consumerism and commodity fetishism that Wal-Mart does – yes, the very
same Wal-Mart that every good liberal boycotted a long time ago.
And in fact, IKEA might be worse. Writes Zaracheck, “IKEA is the
third-largest consumer of wood in the world and uses timber that comes
mostly from Eastern Europe and the Russian Far East, where, Shell points
out, ‘wages are low, large wooded regions remote, and according to the
World Bank, half of all logging is illegal.’”
There’s also the problem of goods that aren’t meant to last. They very
quickly clog landfills and leave consumers plunking down cash for
replacements, maybe even at the same place they bought the first failed
products. There was surely a time when bookshelves that bow after two or
three years would convince a consumer to never return to the place where
they bought them. Now, it’s expected that goods will
disintegrate. And, in a way, this disposability suits our culture: We
always want the newest and the latest, the most trendy products. Broken
bookshelves are a good justification for going back and getting the
newer, better looking ones, and IKEA’s offerings are certainly always
consistent with modern design trends, which are as ephemeral as birch
veneer.
All of this is causing a bit of a crisis for me. Because, as I said, I’m
broke. But I also want to “do the right thing.” It’s a tricky spot: I
need bookshelves, and I can’t justify spending $500 on a new set. In
fact, doing so would make me feel wrong, greedy – we’re in a
recession for gosh sakes. The guilt I’d feel at spending $500 when I
can’t even pay rent is not worth having real wood bookshelves. (This is
certainly a familiar spot for those worse off than me – when poor people
buy goods outside of their means, they’re chastised for it, particularly
by boot-strap conservatives who would love to go in and make a budget
for every poor person in America). And yet, I don’t want to perpetuate
cheap goods made for even cheaper by exploited workers.
The problem, Shell ultimately concludes and with which I agree, is not
necessarily with the consumer. All told, we don’t have much of a choice.
If Wal-Mart and IKEA had our best interests at heart, and actually
produced quality goods at affordable prices that would maybe lessen the
bigwigs’ bonuses but not cause the companies to collapse, then we’d be
in a much better buying position.
There are some alternatives to dealing with what we’ve got, though.
Because there was a time when quality goods were valued,
Salvation Army and Goodwill often sells used furniture that has held up
quite well for who knows who long. There’s also dumpster diving,
Craigslist, yard sales and your parents’ basements. The disposability of
our current culture does have its benefits, after all: Some
people get tired of things before they are even broken and willingly
pass them on to those who will better appreciate them.
Click here to talk to our writers and
editors about this column and others in our discussion forum.
To e-mail feedback
about this column,
click here. If you enjoy this writer's
work, please contact your local newspapers editors and ask them to carry
it.
