I know a balance is needed. But it’s always stressed how you need to save. Isn’t saving taking away from someone else though? Isn’t spending in many cases giving a working class person a job? If you eat out, buy clothes, get a massage even go to a casino, people are getting paid to do those jobs. If everyone saved then what?
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The reason why saving is stressed, even though a balance is important, is because most Western capitalist societies are significantly unbalanced on the side of low savings and/or debt, especially as far as retail financial security is concerned.
Saving or investment of money is important for an economy, just like spending. However for individuals, if you are spending too much in a wasteful way (i.e. not contributing to your increased productivity in the future), or not saving enough, you’re setting yourself up for being broke, or being unable to upskill yourself, and therefore a potential burden on society and the economy in the future.
Spending isn’t bad, but a large portion of the population having near-zero or negative networth, while spending on conspicuous consumption is indicative of a problem.
Caveat 1: a lot of the above is necessarily qualitative. It’s impossible for someone to say, what *exactly* would be better for everyone in the long run. Only you can decide if a night in the casino, or an online data science degree, is more important to your productivity given your situation. (not /s)
Caveat 2: the saving-spending imbalance isn’t the only problem, and it’s not just up to poor/ middle class individuals to save more, or spend responsibly, to save capitalist society. But saving more and/ or spending responsibly is critical for individuals when planning out their own financial well-being. Also it can be legitimately hard to spend less if you’re being bombarded by targeted marketing campaigns.
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