— By Andy Gustafson
If you saw the recent headline “Man Builds $80,000 beer fort at Vegas nightclub” you may have looked twice– a young man who obviously had money to spend extravagantly bought 400 cases of beer to build a ‘fort’ around he and his friends at a nightclub in Vegas. Is there an ethical question here?
Our American psyche tends to believe that a person is free to do with their hard-earned money whatever they want (providing that it is legal). Who is anyone else to say how someone should or shouldn’t spend their money? And as true as it is that one is free to spend one’s money however one wants, that overlooks a fairly basic question of ethics– is it a good use of money?
Its obvious that we could all live simpler lives than we do– and pushed to an extreme we could all shop for everything at goodwill, live together communally in smaller houses or on farms in sod huts riding horses and living off the land– and the economy would collapse. But to raise the question of whether or not some things are excessive or extravagant– perhaps even unethical– is not to suggest subsistence farming for all.
In many forms of Christian thought, there is a notion of good-goods: quality goods which are useful and beneficial for people. As Christians– as stewards of God’s creation and as co-creators of artifacts in the world– it is thought that we should work towards creating good goods, not not-good-goods. Its part of living in the image of the Creator, to do things well, and to create good things. This is of special importance for those of us in business. It is a bad witness of our faith to provide bad goods.
Not so good goods could include shoddily made products, products which are harmful or just useless, or goods which are frivolous. Of course there is some personal judgment in these decisions, but there are other things which it is likely could be candidates for not being good goods among the majority of people. $80,000 beer forts (particularly when most of that beer remained unopened) seems to be a likely candidate.
And then there are goods which may be seen to have very little good to offer: Abercrombie and Fitch recently had a new line of pre-teen underwear (for 8-11 year old girls) which said “eye candy” on it– which again, seems to be a likely candidate for ‘not-good-good’, since its hard to imagine a context in which that would be appropriate. Also, its hard to see how cigarettes could be a good good (perhaps someone would make argument for occasional cigars– I don’t know and am not tempted). Casino gambling would be on some people’s list, while others would find it enjoyable. And then there are all kinds of foods which are quite unhealthy for a person– 3,000 calorie meals at restaraunts, foods with no nutritional value, etc. And then there are apparently frivolous extravagant things like beer forts, $500,000 cars or watches, and mansions which are much bigger than anyone could possibly utilize.
Good goods is a controversial concept, because what seems acceptable to one person may seem obviously not-good to another. Goodness of the good is its usefulness, its value or benefit, its quality, and its sustainability. And producing not-good-goods is one things, but consuming them is yet another. On the consumer side, there is also an argument to be made that we ought not to be wasting money on bad goods– especially on frivolous extravagant things. But this gets us into even more difficult territory. Is a $15 hamburger extravagant? Is a $45 steak extravagant? Must everything I put in my body have nutritional value, and is it a sin for me to eat chocolate cream pie, liqour and– most controversial of all no doubt– bacon?? (I had you until bacon, didn’t I?) …
But again, there are extremes which most people can probably agree on– like $80,000 beer forts…
Bibliography:
On the Nature of Good Goods and the Ethical Role of Marketing (Santos and Laczniak)
Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire (Cavanaugh)
Business, Faith, and the Common Good Institute 
What if we see the expenditure on a beer fort as a transfer rather than as waste? So, what is the waste here? If the beer was thrown out afterwards, then it was a waste, but what do we know about what the bar did with the beer after the fact. If the guy walked into the bar and gave the bar tender $80,000 we might see this as an act of charity. What offends us here? Is it that it happened in a night club? I bet if we had full knowledge there are many more extreme breaches of character that happened at that very night club that very night.
I don’t have much insight into why someone would drop $80,000 in one night, but I also am not sure that it should concern us any more than someone who is willing to give $80,000 to a theatre group with the assumption that their sponsorship will be printed prominently in the bulletin. It might be more wasteful that a theatre group who could not fund themselves spend six weeks rehearsing a play that few people would want to see, than night club employees stacking up boxes in the middle of the dance floor only to take them back down and put them back in inventory after the display of conspicuous consumption is over. At least in the night club example, the money is left for someone to spend on something else valuable, albeit something the night club owner buys instead of the young man who will eventually run out of money.
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Michael,
This is a really great set of questions, and I appreciate your engaging on the beer fort example, because it is one which on the face of it would seem to be a frivolous expenditure to the point of indulgence, but there are serious questions to raise, and you (as always) do such a great job asking those.
From what our ‘tour guide’ said when we visited the Wynn in March, they couldn’t re-use the beer (although who knows what the workers did with it afterwards?) So there is the issue of waste.
I am also not saying that spending 80,000 on a theatre group is not wasteful. Of course, if the play is well attended by the wealthy, and it increases business and reputation for the business by at least 80,000, it seems that something useful has been bought, at least. If the play is a dud, then perhaps the marketing department spending money on advertising in dud play bulletins needs to be sacked.
But beyond that, I think some people (and some ethicists) would think that spending 80,000 to build a beer fort in a night club is a self-indulgent act. Aristotle has an interesting part of Nicomachean Ethics where he says that the incontinent man is not as bad as the self-indulgent man because the incontinent man knows what he should do, wishes he would do the right thing, but fails and knows he has failed to do it, while (on Aristotles view) the self-indulgent man knows full well what he he should do, but did the wrong thing anyway:
The self-indulgent man, as was said, is not apt to repent; for he stands by his choice; but incontinent man is likely to repent. This is why the position is not as it was expressed in the formulation of the problem, but the selfindulgent man is incurable and the incontinent man curable; for wickedness is like a disease such as dropsy or consumption, while incontinence is like epilepsy; the former is a permanent, the latter an intermittent badness. And generally incontinence and vice are different in kind; vice is unconscious of itself, incontinence is not (of incontinent men themselves, those who become temporarily beside themselves are better than those who have the rational principle but do not abide by it, since the latter are defeated by a weaker passion, and do not act without previous deliberation like the others); for the incontinent man is like the people who get drunk quickly and on little wine, i.e. on less than most people.
Evidently, then, incontinence is not vice (though perhaps it is so in a qualified sense); for incontinence is contrary to choice while vice is in accordance with choice; not but what they are similar in respect of the actions they lead to; as in the saying of Demodocus about the Milesians, ‘the Milesians are not without sense, but they do the things that senseless people do’, so too incontinent people are not criminal, but they will do criminal acts.
Self indulgence is for Aristotle a vice. It seems that from a common sense viewpoint (which of course may be wrong upon reflection) spending 80,000 on a beer fort is self indulgent. Of course there are many things he could have done with the money, and giving it to a needy person is one option– and should he have done that, it is likely we would call it charity or philanthropy. If he would have simply handed it to the bartender for a tip, we would think him to have the vice, in Aristotle’s thinking, of wastefulness. A generous man gives to the right people, at the right times, the right amount. A miserly person does not give what he ought, and a wasteful person gives inappropriately– it is a vice, for Aristotle. Interestingly, a new book coming out is called “The Vice of Luxory” which would be an interesting book to look at on this point (and I hope to).
Now we may say fiddlestix to Aristotle– people can give money however they want, as they want. A man has no obligation how he spends his money, no obligation to anyone for whatever good fortune he has encountered from God, no obligation to be a steward of his funds towards others, thinking as though they were not merely his alone to determine how to spend. And perhaps one could say there is no such thing as frivolous spending, since all spending helps the economyone way or the other. But it is hard for me to know how that one could hold that view and take Christ’s life as a model. I know its a slippery slope, and one could always preserve resources and who am I to say that an 80,000 beerfort if self indulgent and a 8.99/lb steak I’m going to grill up tonight is not, but it seems very obvious to me that there is a huge difference there– one is absolutely unnecessary (although, I’m sure, entertaining), the other at least provides supper.
Thanks again for engaging on this! I’m sorry I only now realized there was a comment here to respond to!
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