Post #19

Boots theory —— "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 a 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 quote, an excerpt from Terry Pratchett's novel "Men at Arms", is the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory ofsocioeconomic unfairness. The theory is a satirical take on the idea that it is more expensive to be poor than to be rich, and it still holds to this day. Another way of interpreting the story is "false economy." We are exposed to hundreds of ads every day to buy this, buy that, leading to a culture of consumerism. The difficult aspect is not simply acquiring the funds to purchase the better product, but rather deciding if it holds significant value for you. Telegram