Originally published on Forbes.com May 18th, 2013
I have been so caught up in the problems of the IRS Cincinnati gang that couldn’t sort straight and breaking developments in the area of creation science, that I almost missed an important proposal. According to Public Policy Polling 27% of Americans think that hipsters should be subject to a special tax because they are so annoying. Frankly, I am a little skeptical about the poll. I’m not certain that all that many Americans have a really clear idea as to what a hipster is or encounter enough hipsters to be annoyed by them. According to the Urban Dictionary
Hipsters are a subculture of men and women typically in their 20’s and 30’s that value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics, an appreciation of art and indie-rock, creativity, intelligence, and witty banter. The greatest concentrations of hipsters can be found living in the Williamsburg, Wicker Park, and Mission District neighborhoods of major cosmopolitan centers such as New York, Chicago, and San Francisco respectively. Although “hipsterism” is really a state of mind,it is also often intertwined with distinct fashion sensibilities. Hipsters reject the culturally-ignorant attitudes of mainstream consumers, and are often be seen wearing vintage and thrift store inspired fashions, tight-fitting jeans, old-school sneakers, and sometimes thick rimmed glasses.
Straight To The Source
It happens that I know someone with fairly strong hipster credentials. That would be my son, William Reilly. He is nineteen years old and attends Pratt Institute where he majors in creative writing. I don’t know if setting up a blog and never posting to it, is a hipster thing to, but he did it. Pratt Institute is in Clinton Hill, a neighborhood of Brooklyn that is just down the road from Williamsburg. When I told my friend Alan Jacobs that my son was going to Pratt, Alan, who is the hippest person I have ever known, told me that Williamsburg is the center of hipsterdom. Silly me. I thought it was Greenwich Village where Alan lives.
I asked William why he thought people found hipsters so annoying. He said he thought it might be because they are trying to be pariahs. I asked him what the most cutting edge forms of hipster attire are. He indicated scarfs, beanies, cardigans, skinny jeans and boots, but not work boots.
I asked him how we would implement a hipster tax. He suggested that it might be done by taxing thrift store purchases and vegan food. If you think about it charging double sales tax on thrift store purchases might give a boost to the economy, since it might create more demand for new stuff. I asked about Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer. Hipster interest in PBR is said to be responsible for a spike in the prices of sub-premium beer. He was familiar with the concept of PBR having hipster cachet, but admitted that college age hipsters more or less drink whatever they can get their hands on.
The Historical Precedent
The drive to tax hipsters is similar to the motivation behind Renaissance Sumptuary Law. Sumptuary laws were designed to prevent people from dressing “above their station”. For example:
Servants, shepards, common laborers, servents to artificers living outside of any city or borough, and all farmers worth less than 10 pounds a years shall not wear cloth costing more than 2 shillings a broad yard or hose worth more than 10d a yard.
The idea was that you should be content with the class you were born into and not aspire any higher. There is a theory that people would be happier in a world like that. In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley imagines that beta children in his utopia/dystopia would listen to tapes in their sleep that went:
Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they’re so frightfully clever. I’m really awfully glad I’m a Beta, because I don’t work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don’t want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse.
Are Hipsters Annoying Because The Subvert Both Right And Left ?
Being content with your station is, of course, antithetical to the American class system, which presents itself, with some justification, as a meritocracy. Mitt Romney’s infamous 47% rant is an example of that perspective.
Being a beta in a beta profession, I know that adopting the attitude that it is OK to be a beta is considered subversive. The alphas of public accounting can end up being consumed with envy of other professions that have the potential for higher earnings. A beta CPA who is happy driving an inexpensive car, not belonging to a country club and having no taste for single malt scotch can be rather disturbing to them.
James Gould Cozzens once wrote in his journal:
The average fair-minded person is inclined to be liberal for the chief reason that he can’t but see that conservatism, however plausible its arguments, must boil down to a declaration by those who are top-dog that it’s good and right for them to remain top-dog.
The medieval and early modern social system was based on ideas of people being born into a certain social class and achieving maximum happiness by accepting the privileges and duties of their station. People dressing above their station undermined this system. The people on top were on top, because God decided that they should be there.
In America, the people on top believe that they are there, because they worked harder than other people. The people further down the ladder should want what they have and come to realize that the reason that they don’t have it is because they are slackers. Hipsters buying their clothes in thrift shops and appearing to be happier than achievers are subversive to both the 1% and those of the 99% who think it is important to cut the 1% down to size.
I don’t know that taxing hipsters would be all that helpful, but maybe the matter needs more consideration, so I have started a We The People Petition on the matter. I’ll let you know how it goes.
You can follow me on twitter @peterreillycpa.