Terry Pratchett's Boot Theory
Terry Pratchett's Boot Theory
Based on the excerpt from this Discworld book, what other items do you use regularly that would fit in this theory? (Boots and shoes are fair game!)
Text transcript for people who want it:
[The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.]
Bonus: suggest ways you can repair/restore your item/other people's items.
I see Sir PTerry, I upvote.
And hey, just sliding this totally smoothly into the conversation, did you all know we have !discworld@lemmy.ml (Lemmy / Kbin)
*sidles out awkwardly*
36Car repair. Towing and fixing a car with a ruined engine is ten times as much as doing regular maintenance. And it's not just the dollar cost of oil changes and belts: When you are better off, you have the free time to run that errand to do those things.
Dental care, for almost the exact same reasons.
General healthcare has all of those factors PLUS if your general health goes bad you may not be able to work so now fixing it is expensive and you have no income.
27Boots, shoes, clothes, technology, cars, houses, furniture.
Everything.
22Food.
If you don't have much money then it can be a lot harder to eat healthily, due to cost of fresh ingredients and time to cook, which is time you may not have.
This can lead to eating a lot of unhealthy and processed food, which then causes knock-on costs later with poor health, illness, and medical bills that aomeone with the money to eat healthily might have been able to avoid.
17Problem now is “luxury” brands, which is the same shit quality at a huge markup. Quality is often not even a consideration for producers these days.
13In the UK you have to pay car tax which basically is a tax on vehicles which obstensively covers road maintenance.
If you pay monthly then you have to pay 12 units for one year.
However if you can afford to pay one lot all in one go then you only have to pay the equivalent of 10 units. Essentially you get two months for free.
Now presumably this is because it is easier to account for your budget if you get it all in one job lot right at the beginning of the year. So it is worth them giving you a economic incentive to do that. But loads of people cannot afford that so they end up paying more money.
Most people keep a car for what five ir six years? In that time the effectively pay an entire extra years worth of road tax if they pay monthly rather than yearly.
Boo.
11I always thought that laundry was the best example of this.
Poor people go to the laundrette, which is expensive over time and time-consuming.
Less poor people buy cheap washing machines which are expensive to run and break sooner.
Rich people buy highly efficient washing machines which are cheaper to run and last for years.
And on top of that poor people buy cheaper clothes, which wear out sooner (as with the boots example) and dry their clothes indoors on hangers which, again, takes longer and also creates damp, unpleasant living conditions!
EDIT: Typos.
10@sunshine It's very true. There are ways to break the cycle but being poor often means also not having the time to fix or pick up stuff. I have been living of a low income for years now. I think like 80% percent of the stuff I own has been free or second hand.
Clothes dryer, washing machine, dishwasher, oven, microwave, furniture, clothes etc. etc. Sometimes it's tedious and frustrating.
But I also didn't have to work full time or two jobs just to buy all that crap new.
It means I get to spend money on good shoes for me and the kids. Good mattresses. New clothes for the kids because social pressure dictates it. Food.
The rest I build, repair, trade etc. etc. If this capitalist society collapses I'm fucked, off course.7House. If you can afford to buy one, it is much cheaper than to pay rent over decades.
Training. If you can afford to not earn money for a few years, training in a valuable skill will earn you much money.
More training. Sometimes you just need to stop earning money for a year.
Tools. It may be hard to choose good tools, some are overpriced for no good reason, but tools you work with instead of working around is a productivity booster.
BTW, this theory has a name in socio-economics, it is called the "poverty trap" (aka "it is expensive to be poor") it is not as much how the rich get richer (there are a lot of more salient mechanisms there) but more about how the poor remain poor.
7It's Terry, so it's good. But as someone who buys expensive leather shoes due to fucked up feet and good shoes increasing the time until the hurt, it absolutely tracks. I've been using my 250€ leather shoes for three years now and they're still OK. 75€ standard sneakers I used before had holes in the soles within a year.
6In a somewhat paradoxical fashion, it would be cheaper to buy and own many things over an extended period of time versus renting them. However, pooling resources to buy just one of something and have it be accessible to a community seems like the more ideal sustainable approach.. But we also see perversions of the 'sharing' model with things like ride-sharing and AirBnB. Just something some of the comments (i.e. on laundry and tools) made me think about.
4I would say it's not so much that they managed to, it's that they could afford to spend less money. You cannot afford good food, so you eat crappy food and get sick, so you have to go to the doctor. You cannot afford good insurance, so you have to spend a ludicrous amount to get good care that will fix the problem, but you cannot afford that, so instead of a one time charge, you now have the worse prescription that still costs a bit, and it doesn't even keep you healthy, it just keeps you moving forward, barely. Because of your condition, you now can't even work as well as you could, so you get paid even less, all the while your health is deteriorating because the medicine you can already barely afford isn't actually what you really need.
How the fuck do you get out of that on your own?
4In 2021 I rented a car and did Uber for about a year. At $316 a week, that car was costing me 1200 a month!
Eventually I lost the car as I couldnt afford to pay.
Now I’ve got a job, been building my credit, gonna buy a car instead. That car will be about $300/mo. And all because I’ve got the credit and cash to buy instead of rent.
3adjacent – we all have the same 24 hours
3There's a simpler saying: "you cannot afford to buy cheap things".
It's an effective way to climb out of poverty of you're making ends meat, so long as you're in a position where your things won't be stolen. Save up to buy quality, or buy used quality things that last and can be repaired. It's a wise investment, cheap goods are part of the poverty trap.
I mostly wear a single pair of $350 boots. The cost per mile makes them the cheapest footwear I can buy. I've worn them daily for 2 years, they have maybe one more year before they need a resole. Boots are only a single example. It's the same for everything from clothing to cars to houses to electronics.
3So much stuff in the building trade follows this. Flooring, cheap laminate and tiles scuff and scratch and need replaced after a few years, whereas solid wood/stone tiles are pretty much good for ever. Same with cheap fitted kitchens, plumbing fittings etc.
One of the most obvious is paint. "Cheap" paint usually needs twice as many coats, will discolour quicker and is harder to clean.
3Here's my example: Nice Hoka shoes are typically 100$+, but Sketcher's Work Sneakers are ~40$. The Hokas would last a lot longer and be more ergonomic, but that price is way out of my reach. The Sketchers get disintegrated by a year of use.
What I do is add arch supports and gel shoe inserts (9$ iirc) into the Sketchers, and replace those when they wear. It adds about two years of life to the shoes! :)
3Thats what the concept 'conscious spending' tries to address and set up protocols to get out of the negative feedback cycle of having to constantly buy cheap shit only to have to replace it and double your cost.
https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/conscious-spending-basics/
The link above has much more details on this if y'all are interested.
3The system is set up against the poor. Not only is long term quality something you usually cannot afford for your purchases as with the boot example, things that were normal goods are now commodities people must have a subscription for (or buy the quality version). All the late fees, overdraft fees, fixed rate parking tickets, anything is set up to fuck over the little guy and keep him poor and running in his hamster wheel.
2Boots, same as Vines. I used to buy boots every year for 200pln and they gave out mid season. Bought a pair for 700pln and it lasted 6 years. Also I have a 15 year old backpack which I wore almost daily.
2The explosion of dollar stores in the U.S. is like a boot that keeps pushing stomping on poor people to ensure they have to way out and this theory perfectly describes the situation.
The way forward is not to replace dollar stores with Targets, it's to move beyond capitalism and it's base of exploitation and move toward a base of cooperation.
Some ideas:
- Make and grow stuff (food, weed, soaps, furniture, etc. and give it away, consume stuff your neighbors make and grow. Everything you avoid buying is power you don't give to the capitalists.
- If you have money, help those that don't to buy quality boots (without seeking to profit, such as from a loan)
- Fix things, value things not for being brand new, but for working and having history.
- Buy used (tho if you have money, take care not to buy up all the nice things at thrift shops leaving the scraps for those who the thrift shops are their only choice)
- Become reslilient at the community level - start out by making friends
2the same concept is true for many other items - ultimately, it comes down to "you get what you pay for".
I had to get shoes last week, the ones I had previously had lasted 9 years and the rubber soles were beginning to crumble. they're now relegated to yard shoes & won't last another year. new shoes are 100% leather, with rubber soles, cost $90 & were on sale (normal price was $140). they'll last at least another 9 years without any issues.
most of the things I buy, I always look for sales but I never buy the cheap/cheaply made products. cheap stuff might last a year & it's just not worth it. expensive stuff is usually cheaper in the long term.
1Tyres
In a subtle way. Go cheap and you may total your car in ugly weather. Go reliable and you may stop in time.
Of course you don't have to feature in c/idiotsInCars
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