Xma$ USA

Christmas is…the joyful celebration of the birth of the Messiah of a religion more than two thousand years old, one based on faith, charity, humility, and love. Christmas is…a feast combining elements of pagan, Jewish, and yes, Christian beliefs and rituals. Christmas is…in the United States especially–but to lesser and varying extent in many other countries too–an orgy of consumption, a collective madness that leads otherwise normal people to get up in the wee hours of the morning and to get into fights with strangers in order to get the best bargain, the most popular toy, the newest electronic marvel.

Xma$ USA is, above all, the most striking example of the material rewards and the nasty contradictions that characterize the contemporary capitalist economy. It is an economy of abundance for many people, especially the rich, not so much anymore for the middle class, and not at all for the poor. It is also an economy the health of which depends on a brisk pace of growth, always and forever, in a world endowed with vast but finite resources, like oil, water, land, even breathable air–resources which, despite occasional ups and downs, are growing scarcer and more expensive all time.

There are few people that don’t revel in the goodies that Xma$ gift-giving provides, from the top-of-the-line BMW a rich spouse might give his or her love partner to the one and only inexpensive toy a very poor kid is likely to get. But there are few people indeed who give much thought to the Xma$’s other face, the trove of contradictions Xma$ produces, illuminates, or implies.

One example is the fact that, especially during these times when most people are still burdened with piles of debt, Xma$ consumer fever is irrational for the economy of an individual or a family but absolutely beneficial or virtually essential to the economy as a whole, the main driver of which is consumer spending. What would happen, for instance, to the small retailers that depend on Xmas for as much as 40 percent of their sales–and to their employees–if we all suddenly decided to turn all rational and spend within our means, even at Xmas? And retailers typically add about 700,000 workers for the Xma$ season.

A second example is the contradiction that Xma$ manufactures between individual economic rationality and the social, cultural, and personal expectations of family, friends, and colleagues. This is the tyranny of Xma$. It’s no trivial thing. The prolific American writer Joyce Carol Oates has a novel in which a man is unable to buy Xma$ presents for his wife and kids after he loses his job and solves his dilemma by killing his family and himself. 

You may hate shopping in general and/or the lunacy of Xma$ shopping in particular. But you fail to comply with others’ expectations at your peril. We are now not in the realm of the gift but that of obligation.

For example, I have a close friend with myriad relatives, friends, acquaintances and colleagues. He hates Xma$ shopping so much that he has ended up dreading the whole Christmas thing and each year challenging himself to complete his huge Xma$ shopping list into a single day, December 24th, the last possible minute.

Gift cards have been, in the last few years, a godsend to him. But I am sure he must still contend with those very close to him to whom giving a gift card would be a major faux pas. Curiously, although we have been the best of friends forever, we seldom if ever give each other Xma$ gifts. I once wondered about it and concluded that it’s mostly because we both feel the same about Xma$, and who wants to saddle a good and lucid friend with an obligation. Maybe we have overcome the tyranny of Xma$.

Then again, maybe I failed to give him an Xma$ present a couple of times or more and until he no longer felt an obligation. I am sorry if I disappointed him, but overall I think we are better off with our understanding. He has given me myriad presents over the years at other times than Xma$, material, yes, (he always has a good selection of Scotch, is a great host, and has treated me to restaurant meals I could once afford) but most importantly is the invaluable gift of real friendship.

I have given him my sincere friendship too, and only very occasionally something nominal, like a belt I was wearing he once admired. Mine didn’t fit him, but I went and found one that did. I think this kind of love–between two tremendously rough, competitive, heterosexual men, and who still have some residual dose of machismo to overcome–is more in the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth than anything that goes on at Macy’s.

Right about now the reader–my friend first among them–is thinking that this hard-ass critic has lost his marbles or is in his cups, going warm and fuzzy and all that stuff real men and fierce social critics are not supposed to do, and which I very rarely indulge in. So let me get back to the main point, the contradictions of Xma$.

This season has been relatively weak for retailers, not ruinous but disappointing. That’s despite the fact that this year shoppers spent an estimated $177 billion–and that’s only through December 15. Last minute shoppers are flocking stores as I write December 22), so we can assume the total will easily exceed $200 billion. Compare that figure with the USAID–the main U.S. international assistance organization–budget request for 2014: $20.4 billion. And this includes such assistance as “democracy promotion” programs, which have an essentially political purpose, as well as lavish spending on connected consultants and contractors.

This miserly Congress will almost surely approve a lesser amount. But never mind that. Let’s just propose a conservative figure for the proportion of Xma$ gifts that are a total waste, things that just sit around and are never used: 20 percent. You could triple the USAID budget with that wasted $40 billion in junk.

I am not sure if this would be good or bad, given some of the things the agency does. What is clear is that $40 billion in real aid would go a long way in relieving human suffering around the world. Pope Francis has said that the economy we now have “kills.” Forty billion in aid would make it a bit less homicidal and truly reflect the spirit of the religion’s founder.      

One of the things that Xma$ also lays bares in stark relief is our society’s outrageous level of inequality. All children are exposed to the range of goodies out there that Santa Claus could bring, but a huge number don’t receive any gifts bought at Nordstrom’s. They are lucky if they get a good meal and a toy from the Dollar Store.

Xma$ is supposed to be for the children, but even rich kids are often disappointed with what they get. The desire for more and better is insatiable. In that sense, Xmas is great training for those kids who are destined to become Wall Street masters of the universe and, more generally for the way our political economy really works. But does this have anything to do with the man who spoke of the rich man, the camel, and the eye of a needle?

Xma$ is a jolly, happy holiday mostly for one group: retailers. That’s in a good year; a bad one can ruin them. And, one final contradiction: the worse the economy the more profit for the Scrooges among retailers, the ones like Walmart that fiercely resist the right of workers to organize and pay way less than a living wage.

Let me end this column not like the Grinch who stole Christmas. I sincerely wish you a merry holiday season in the true spirit of the celebration, to one and all, Jews and Christians, Moslems and Buddhists, atheists and evangelicals, and everyone else too.