A few days ago, I received a circular from one of a small but growing band of companies taking a certain approach:

“We see from our records that you haven’t made a purchase from us for some time. Here is a voucher for 10% reduction”.

With a deadline of about two weeks.

I suppose this is a natural consequence of a data-rich world where companies can (relatively) effortlessly track our behaviour. I’m not very keen on it, though I can see that it could have benefits to the customer too.

What really jars is the implication that it is somehow an expectation that I will regularly spend money with a business whether I really need to or not. To me, it speaks loudly about what buying and selling is supposed to be for. Certainly, companies need sales to survive – but the implication almost seems to be that I am somehow failing in my civic duty if I fail regularly to provide chunks of my relatively small income to the shareholders of large businesses.

It’s another example of how I increasingly feel like an alien in my own country; I have no information whether companies elsewhere behave in the same way. It seems likely that this is not only a British matter, though there is always a cultural filter, and there is no reason either to assume that companies behave the same everywhere. Not all nations are equally brash and gung-ho in their attitude to consumerism. This does, however, feel like a very particular example of the extent to which British society is now controlled by and for commerce.

There have been other recent examples that reinforce this: the government’s recent “Welcome back” campaign to get people back into shops and restaurants ran under the caption “Welcome back to the shops you love” – with a relatively small reminder about safe behaviour as part of it.

The implication is, again, that shopping is not a practical matter but is (as a number of surveys have shown) the nation’s favourite leisure activity. It is no longer a means of acquiring what we need, but an engine of the economy, part of what we exist for. That may also explain a well-intentioned question posted a few weeks ago by a social media contact: “Do we live in a Society or an Economy?” It is a question to which I suspect many would find the answer less obvious than it seems to me. It may also explain why some people are prepared to risk public health for the economy.

There are very few shops I “love” – and those that I do, more because they are cultural institutions than anything economic. They include a delicatessen in Edinburgh and a model shop in Chelmsford. The former because it is a superbly well-stocked and atmospheric national institution, and the latter for old time’s sake, having been one of the original customers over thirty years ago, where I can always have a chat and am generally treated very well.

I can find very little to ‘love’ about the average chain store (or cafe etc), most of which peddle identikit stuff in identikit surroundings the length and breadth of the nation, whose staff know little and care less about what they are selling so long as they hit their targets. I recently saw such shops described as “the traditional British chain store” – as though the dominance of our high streets by huge, anonymous conglomerates is not a relatively recent phenomenon, and indeed something to be loved. It certainly seemed to be such shops that the government was referring to.

As with everything, Covid has thrown a different light. The “rediscovery” of local shops is apparently a resultant phenomenon – though not to those of us who never stopped valuing individual, local shops in the first place. But my incredulity was capped by an article in The Guardian about How to Stop Buying Cheap Clothes – with the admission that “we all” have wardrobes full of such items that are never worn.

Some of us don’t.

New clothes can be a great pleasure – but not because of the quantity in which they are bought; that tends to be highly ephemeral. I am prepared to spend a fair amount on items of clothing, though I like a genuine bargain as much as the next person. However, cheap rags produced in sweat shops are not a bargain. The article’s suggested remedy – try to wear an item thirty times before discarding it – was where the incredulity came. I have items in my wardrobe that are still good after perhaps hundreds of wearings, over many years. What’s more, I still like them very much, as with many other things I have spent good money on over the years.

That is what comes from the careful purchase of well-made items – and from not being a slave to ephemeral trends, whose only purpose is to keep people performing their civic duty of parting with yet more cash. Neither is it a matter of wealth: while there is an issue of initial outlay, the one or two items I buy in the average year certainly cost less in total than the dozens of cheap items that people apparently struggle to wear a handful of times. And they certainly last a lot longer.

And the same goes for all other aspects of consumption: it is a necessary action in order to equip ourselves with what we need – and given that, we might as well make it pleasurable. Done carefully, the acquisition of any new possession can be a moment of some significance. But the mindless mass-consumption of recreational shopping is not, in my opinion, a meaningful action – and that is shown by the rapid fading of any satisfaction, which in turn drives the need for a new ‘hit’.  Nor is it a wise or sustainable basis for running a national economy, particularly one that is a large net importer and has just ditched its major trading partners. If nothing else, it runs directly contrary to our environmental obligations and needs.

It certainly does not equate with the disingenuous implication that I somehow have a duty to keep spending with certain companies, whether I really need their services at a given moment or not. In fact, it could be seen as rather insulting to the “valued customers” to imply that they need reminders of how to behave. If the products and service are good, customer loyalty normally follows. At least if the customers are using their brains.

On further reflection, however, perhaps we could employ the same harrying data-techniques for rather more useful purposes: maybe we should start sending people reminders that they haven’t met their monthly recycling targets, been considerate enough to their neighbours, given enough to charity or looked after their children or elderly parents properly. Maybe they haven’t exercised or eaten well enough in the past month.

Strangely, successive governments have seemed much more reticent about getting equally heavy with such messaging, let alone enforcing pandemic restrictions – yet that is arguably where real civic duty lies; I wonder how it would go down.