One of the most popular threads on the social platform Reddit is ‘End Work’. It is a hub for individuals who wish to embrace a life free from employment and challenge societal norms regarding labour and productivity. I think many points discussed in ‘End Work’ are valid and need wider discussion. That said, those who can afford to not work and spend all their time on discussion forums generally include a minority. We might wonder if they are people with privilege and blessed with strong inflows of capital of all kinds—financial, cultural and social.
So should others (less privileged) just accept structural inequities and get on with their lives because there isn’t an option? Absolutely not. Activism, idealism, and standing up for uncomfortable truths form the bedrock of a moral society. However, they are insufficient and run the risk of devolving into platitudes and soundbites unless accompanied by a tangible action plan. To understand how this might happen, I researched social movements in different parts of the world and stumbled on a new book that challenged my assumptions.
In his acclaimed memoir Troubled: A Memoir of Family, Foster Care, and Social Class, Rob Henderson candidly shares his tumultuous upbringing marked by the absence of his birth parents, navigating foster care, and confronting the pervasive influence of drug and alcohol abuse in his environment. Despite struggling academically in his formative years, college seemed an improbable notion until he found direction in the military, where he spent several years stabilising his life. Overcoming doubts, he applied to Yale, gaining acceptance, ultimately earning a PhD from the University of Cambridge.
Henderson’s memoir isn’t a rags-to-riches story or a motivational book. His key concept is that of luxury beliefs which he defines as the normative views that confer status on the upper classes while potentially imposing costs on the lower classes. They are akin to status symbols, marking distinction and exclusivity for those who hold them.
To better understand luxury beliefs, picture a large group of privileged, wealthy college students holding a protest to abolish capitalism and ending up working at investment banks after graduation. Or consider a vocal bunch of free-speech advocates ready to cancel other people who don’t agree with them.
Henderson’s point is that this performative idealism benefits the privileged and hurts the marginalised. Essentially people with luxury beliefs master the art of saying the right things without feeling any obligation to follow through.
I fear that luxury beliefs can end up morally bankrupting our society by promoting ideas and ideals not suitable for the most vulnerable. If we don’t pause to consider the implications of popular slogans, we are likely to find ourselves in compromising situations that worsen our wellbeing. I don’t think that everything that Henderson talks about in his book is a luxury belief but he draws our attention to the growing trend of moral grandstanding, coupled with minimal or no action.
One of my managers at Microsoft had a simple rule: To be taken seriously, you must do more than you say. During meetings, many ideas would be pitched to him but he would only take ideas from people who had built a track record of delivering. Ideas are cheap, he would often say. I don’t fully agree with his approach. Good ideas can come from anywhere, including people who aren’t great at execution but there needs to be at least some commitment to advance the cause one is championing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” Words matter but speaking them aloud isn’t enough. That’s why it is time for us to elevate the bar for personal and societal morality. If people, organisations, and institutions are relentlessly saying stuff that sounds great but not doing anything about it, they are propagating luxury beliefs. They aren’t interested in change. They are building their brand. All they care about is being part of an exclusive group. We don’t need to abandon or cancel them. We can just lower our expectations and think of other avenues to address important social and economic challenges.
I think all of us carry a certain number of luxury beliefs but we don’t need to live with them. Questioning and stress-testing them is the need of the hour. The memory of the internet is infinite. What we say and do today is likely to last forever. History will be able to judge what we did with our privilege or lack thereof. That’s why it makes sense to recalibrate what we wish to support, oppose, and question.
Utkarsh Amitabh
CEO, Network Capital; Chevening Fellow, University of Oxford
Posts on X: @utkarsh_amitabh