by Ann Biedermann

Browsing through Instagram or YouTube, you have probably seen images of open kitchen pantries with twenty or more identical transparent food containers with neat, hand-written labels. Or of white and beige furniture meticulously placed in an otherwise empty open living-space. Little to no books, pictures or trinkets immediately give away where you are: you ended up on a video about minimalism. “A Rich Life with Less Stuff”, “10 Piece Minimalist Capsule Wardrobe (that’s actually realistic!)”, “What Minimalism Really Looks Like” are titles of YouTube videos which help you to become a minimalist yourself. These videos promise a way out of the stronghold of spending more and more money on pointless consumption, instead focusing on what “really” matters: how do you want to spend your time and money to create a purpose in your life without the distractions of mindless consumption. Yet is this instagrammable form of minimalism truly an antidote to capitalism? 

To replace what you have with new, beautiful products in a minimalist aesthetic is an ill-covered form of consumerism. The afore-mentioned food containers are often the first new items to be purchased in an attempt to consume less. And either you are lucky enough and blessed with a beautiful handwriting, or else these containers come with their best buddy, a label-maker. Even if one is smart enough to see through (hah) these products, replacing plastic products you already own with more durable ones still seems tempting. Your parent’s old Tupperware won’t win you a prize, but the new metal lunch box with integrated cutlery seems attractive AND  convenient. Sure, without #minimalism you would not be aware of these products, but now you can’t live without them. The uniform look of minimalism on social media platforms pressures people into buying products to fit the mould, which both exerts social pressure and maintains consumption.

What you rarely see is people having doubles or spare items. Having more than one thing of a kind is seen as clutter, the Antichrist of minimalism. It pollutes the cupboards and weighs heavily on the minimalist mind. A filled pantry with enough food for unforeseen events has no room  in these empty cupboards. In case you run out of a product, you simply get to the store and replace it. Yet, this convenience only works in an economic environment where any product is ready on demand and plentiful. But it is not only contingent on a capitalist structure, it also presupposes that consumers have the financial means to buy products not when they are cheap but when they are needed. You may even label this the minimalism tax: paying more because you need it now and are not prepared for such an event.

But more disturbing is the fact where this form of minimalism draws a line: Being minimalist because one decides not to spend money makes one look inspiring, being minimalist because one cannot spend money makes on look deprived. “Instagram minimalists” emanate a moral superiority not only over those who consume a lot but also about those who cannot buy into this specific form of minimalism. This resembles a reversal of what Thorstein Veblen once called ‘conspicuous consumption’ – the spending of money on nonessential luxury goods as first and foremost a display of the consumer’s wealth and economic power. You refuse to consume because you can, not because you must.  This argument moves along the question: What is classy when you are rich but trashy when you are poor? (I am looking at you, tiny houses). Social media minimalism looks down on the monetary restrictions many people face and has a distinct classist taste to it.

Minimalism as such is not bad. It is true that today’s generation owns more stuff than any generation before. You even find academic inquiries about “The Abundance of the Middle Class” and the financial and mental toll it takes on people, especially mothers. Going minimal seems to be one way of reducing our footprint on earth. What I want to draw your attention to is that some forms of minimalism do not aim  at reducing our consumption in a holistic way but actually solidify exploitative economic structures and enforce socio-economic disparities. 

Sources & Further Reading: 

A short introduction about Veblen’s concept about how we consume to construct a class identity: “Conspicuous Consumption” by Thorsten Veblen in Thorpe, Christopher, et al., The Sociology Book. DK Publishing, 2019. 

A video documentary by University of California about how middle-class American families amass food, toys and other commodities: “A Cluttered Life: Middle-Class Abundance”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AhSNsBs2Y0&ab_channel=UniversityofCaliforniaTelevision%28UCTV%29

A personal account of minimalism and how it pertains to consumerism and aesthetics: Tolentino, Jia, “The Pitfalls and the Potential of the New Minimalism.” New Yorker, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/02/03/the-pitfalls-and-the-potential-of-the-new-minimalism.