Sunglasses, the modern combatant against ultra-violet radiation, benefit your ophthalmic health, but does having more of them, like thirty different pairs, actually make your life better?

The concept of sunglasses was first developed by the prehistoric Inuit people and reduced the amount of glare from snow and ice, but many centuries later a tool for survival would become commercially fashionable, as with the use of sunglasses by many celebrity actors. Sam Foster in 1929 would introduce the world’s first mass-produced sunglasses and since then, sunglasses have become an extremely popular item within pop culture and fashion, becoming an almost universal item in personal possession around the world. But what would be the case against such a useful and popular item, and in such large quantities?

Well, if everyone in the world decided that they needed to have large independent quantities of sunglasses, making sunglasses the temporary center of attention, the sunglasses industry would noticeably grow. Some would argue that this increase in demand is good for business as it provides a needed boost to any economies experiencing a recessionary gap, though generally it will favor more advanced economies who already have the capital to meet the immediate demand for sunglasses.

In a situation such as this, this trend of purchasing sunglasses would likely only have a short life, meaning that its economic implications would only affect economies in the short run. But let’s say that this trend did not stop with one generation, rather that this consumption habit was passed down and continued by the following generations and the generations after them. Then the economic implications would affect economies in the long run. Instead of aggregate demand decreasing and returning the economy back to equilibrium, aggregate demand stays where it is at best, or at worse aggregate demand grows even further. This economic growth is unsustainable unless either aggregate demand or aggregate supply decrease to return the economy back to equilibrium. However, since we do not know when aggregate supply or aggregate demand will naturally decrease, we can then assume that governments and/or central banks will attempt to artificially decrease aggregate demand through fiscal and/or monetary policy, such as through government spending cuts, increases in taxes, or the raising of interest rates. From a macroeconomic perspective such policies would make sense, but on a microeconomic level such policies would be extremely unpopular since people would prefer not to see an increase in their taxes, businesses would prefer not to see a loss in government subsidies, and borrowers would prefer not to see an increase in their interest rates. But let’s assume that in this fictitious world that the governments around the world implement these unpopular policies to address this unsustainable growth and the general public gets severely upset because they have less disposable income to spend on sunglasses. In response, the people vote out these unpopular parties and vote in favor of ones that favor their spending habits, therefore, putting these nations back on an economically unsustainable path. 

But what is unsustainable about this path, and is it a bad thing if it means that the nations around the world experience lower unemployment rates and an arguably more productive economy? Well, if this inflationary gap were to continue, as it name implies, inflation would continue to rise at an extremely high rate, where the overall cost of living would increase, and since the economy is performing beyond its current capacity– beyond its resource threshold– this economic growth could only last so long before the global economy begins to experience a cycle of booms and busts. If left unchecked, the global economy could spiral into a recession.

To continue on with the narrative of the sunglasses-oriented world, let’s say that sunglasses have now become the new indicator of wealth and status around the world where people with the most sunglasses have the most prestige and those with the least with the least prestige. Therefore, the demand for sunglasses has only increased, and with its role in society people have begun to spend vast amounts of their disposable incomes only on sunglasses, while a number of those with little amounts of such income begin to spend their broader income on sunglasses instead of more basic necessities due to societal pressure. But this cycle of increasing demand and spending will only cause inflation to rise further and eventually the world gets to the extreme scenario where businesses simply cannot keep up with demand any more and begin to cut their costs, which will cause aggregate supply to decrease and in turn cause even greater amounts of inflation. The world begins to fall into a period of stagflation where economic growth has stalled, since businesses are beginning to slow down, industries other than the sunglasses industry have been severely under invested, as well as higher rates of unemployment, and inflation is at an all time high. People begin to become restless about the dismal economic situation the world has fallen into and try to find blame for who had caused it. Is it the businesses who are struggling to keep up with demand, is it the governments who only try to reflect the best wishes of their peoples, is it the spending habits of the populous, or is it a random minority group for which a growing political movement has blamed for the world’s downfall?

The economies of the world are extremely complex and difficult systems to fully navigate to get answers to such a question, but in truth it is likely a combination of the first three responses given, and not fourth. Economies run on the responses and coordinating actions of their  several aspects, whether it be the microeconomic decisions of the individual or business, or the macroeconomic actions of governments and central banks around the world. We are all entwined within a system that will inevitably reflect the decisions and actions we have made over time, and, in truth, it can be quite hard to determine whether or not such decisions and actions will be beneficial or not. But one thing is for certain, everyone does not need thirty different pairs of sunglasses. 

Why does one need more pairs of sunglasses than one requires?