Mr. Vice Chancellor, distinguished colleagues, graduates and their families and well-wishers. My greetings to the entire community of the University of Warwick, and my sincere thanks for the great honour that has been granted to me.

Seeing this assembly of accomplished young people on the cusp of taking on the challenges of our world, I, as so many before me, cannot resist thinking back –nearly 50 years in my case – to when I was in your shoes. It was an exciting time. Perhaps for that reason I cannot remember a word of what the wise men and women at my graduation exercises had to say. Not a word.

So, honoured though I am to be in this position, I also feel uneasy. What wise words can I convey to you here that can stand up to the occasion? I have settled on a three-minute sermon on the topic of your future lives as consumers.

For many, many centuries, such an address didn’t even require three minutes. Consumption not intended for the maintenance of body and soul was called luxury, and luxury put your soul in mortal danger; nearly all of the seven deadly sins were implicated in acts of consumption. And this danger to your soul was also a corrupting influence on society. No good could come from it.

Almost exactly 300 years ago, a Dutch physician named Barnard Mandeville, who had removed himself to London to escape imprisonment for libel and slander, famously argued that, yes, luxury consumption is, indeed, the very embodiment of vice; but, it happens also to be the source of national prosperity. The sins of the people are the foundation of society’s prosperity and comfort.

People long struggled with Mandeville’s claim that commercial societies were morally bankrupt and mired in hypocrisy; that more sin led to greater well-being. But, in time, they set this dilemma aside. The behaviour that leads to prosperity simply could not longer be thought of as vice. Today, consumption is judged primarily on the basis of taste, not of mortality. We don’t ask many difficult questions about the actual objects of desire. Who is to judge? And, journalistic commentary on the economy regularly reminds us that all will be well when consumers open their purses again. What is socially important about consumer demand is aggregate demand.

In an earlier era of economic crisis, this same message was already being absorbed. In 1934, a humorist writing inPunch had a kindly bishop inquire of a bright-haired lad what he hoped to be when he grew up:

I want to be a consumer,

The bright-haired lad replied

As he gazed upon the Bishop’s face

In innocence open eyed.

I’ve never had aims of a selfish sort

For that, as I know, is wrong.

I want to be a consumer, Sir

And help the nation on.

In our current international economic difficulties, you too may be asking, now that you are all grown up: how can I help? Other speakers at events such as this focus their inspirational words on your bright futures as productive members of society and all the good that you can do for the world. I want to focus your attention for a moment on your future life as consumers. It isn’t easy to consume well. And it is important.

It is important to you personally, to be sure, but also to society, and not simply, as the bright-haired lad understood, because with your spending, you do your bit to keep the wheels of commerce turning today.

Back when the challenge of Mandeville was still thought troubling, a solution was proposed – by no less than Adam Smith. Today, it is largely forgotten, but it is worth remembering. Smith argued that the foundation of society’s prosperity is not any consumption (as Mandeville had it), but prudent consumption. The prudent person substitutes pure self regard and self interest for self betterment. He or she considers the present utility of goods, but also the utility of future consumption– what we might today call sustainability.

An historical view of economic life reveals a great deal of variance in how societies have consumed over time. Some for better; some for worse. Consumption is an art, you might say, worthy of your attention. But, I do not need to remind the graduates assembled here that the arts are of genuine importance to society. They are not a mere luxury.

My congratulations to you all.

Jan de Vries
University of California at Berkeley