Minimalists and Hoarders (with Michael Easter)

EconTalk

Library of Economics and Liberty

Ethics, Philosophy, Economics, Books, Science, Business, Courses, Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Interviews, Education, History

4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Why do we buy stuff we don't need? Maybe for the same reason that some people can't stand stuff at all. Listen as author Michael Easter speaks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about how two seemingly opposed approaches to our possessions--minimalism and hoarding--may stem from the same impulse to cope with uncertainty. They also discuss the downsides of minimalism and how to figure out whether we're really buying the right things.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:07.9	I'm your host, Russ Roberts, of Sholem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:13.8	Go to EconTalk.org, where you can subscribe, comment on this episode, and find links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:21.2	You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to 2006.
0:26.7	Our email address is mail at econtalk.org. We'd love to hear from you.
0:36.7	Today's January 7, 2025.
0:38.3	I want to thank everyone who voted in the survey of your favorite episodes of 2024.
0:43.3	I'll have the results soon.
0:45.3	And now for today's guest, author Michael Easter.
0:48.3	His substack is called 2%.
0:50.3	This is his third appearance on Econ Talk.
0:52.3	He was last year in October of 2023, talking about excess, moderation, and the scarcity brain. Michael, welcome back to Econ Talk. Thanks for having me back, Ross. Our topic for today is based on an essay you wrote on your substack, why minimalism doesn't work. So nominally, we're going to talk about
1:13.0	minimalism, but inevitably we're going to talk about a number of related topics and maybe
1:17.0	some unrelated topics. Let's start with the definition. What is minimalism?
1:22.7	I think minimalism is, well, I think it's a new thing in the grand scheme of time and space, I will say that.
1:28.8	But I think it's a desire to get rid of as much stuff as you can to sort of create an aesthetic
1:37.6	in the world you live in where you have less.
1:40.9	And you're really trying to pare down items to those that you think, I'll use the term from
1:47.7	a popular minimalist spark joy. You open the piece saying, quote, confession, I bought something
1:54.8	I didn't need on Black Friday, a truly fantastic wool shirt from Wilson for a long through hike in the spring.
2:05.3	Narrator, Michael already owns three wool flannels.
2:09.1	That's the end of the quote.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Library of Economics and Liberty, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Library of Economics and Liberty and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.