Affording Austerity

"The word "can't" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. The ability to afford something is often a choice. I can afford a $50 hamburger, in the sense that I could spend $50 on lunch without triggering financial catastrophe. But I refuse to pay $50 for a hamburger because it's much more than I think a burger is worth."

"Parents in the American middle class know this line of thought well. Can we afford a thousand dollars for Junior's hockey team? Well, yes and no. Can we afford to get our teenager a new used car? Kinda, sorta, but not really. A new big-ticket expense may be possible in an absolute sense but would require sacrifices beyond what seems reasonable. And it may make managing future expectations that much harder even while draining future resources."

"'Afford' carries different meanings. There's an absolute sense: By no stretch of the imagination could I afford to buy Disneyland. Even if I denied myself literally every other expenditure and I brought all my resources to bear, I wouldn't have nearly enough. In this example, it's hardly a crisis; I have no designs on Disneyland. In cases of medical debt, though, this sense of 'afford' can be devastating."

Afford carries multiple meanings, including an absolute sense where a purchase is impossible and a relative sense based on personal judgment and category limits. Some purchases are affordable in isolation but are refused because they exceed perceived value or create harmful habits over time. Middle-class families routinely weigh large purchases like sports fees or cars as possible yet requiring unreasonable sacrifices and risking future expectations. Medical debt can render affordability catastrophic by forcing choices between money and life, with the U.S. medical system imposing legal pressures. The rhetoric of 'can't' masks choices about priorities, trade-offs, and governance of shared resources.

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