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Comment: Balancing Frugality and Miserliness
Click for Comment Archive at bottom of page May 03,2004-The current issue of Fortune Magazine has a feature on the founder of the Swedish furniture group IKEA Ingvar Kamprad. He is estimated to be worth $18.5m by Forbes, continues to fly economy, takes the metro to work, drives a ten-year-old Volvo, and avoids suits of any kind. The joke in Sweden is that if Kamprad happens to drink an overpriced Coke out of a hotel minibar, he will go to a grocery store to buy a replacement. He is clearly a frugal man and when he spoke to Fortune Magazine in 1989, he made the case that he wasn't as tight as he had been.
'I seldom wash disposable plastic glasses anymore,' Kamprad said. The
78-year-old entrepreneur who lives in Holland, claims to have been
preparing for his death for more than 20 years, and in 1982 he
established an intricate system of foundations, trusts, and holding
companies to avoid high taxes and ensure that IKEA could not be broken
up by family infighting. Kamprad's three sons
work for the company . Frugality or thriftiness is a good thing but when it becomes interchangeable with miserliness, it has morphed into a disease. One result of prosperity is the spread of miserliness. In the past in Ireland, when people had very little, generosity was not in short supply. In contrast in modern Ireland, it is not uncommon to find miserliness amidst plenty. It's propelled by the desire for more material goods and it can also result from a sense of past insecurity when money was less plentiful. Some years ago I saw a TV documentary on a wealthy American oil businessman Nelson Bunker Hunt who travelled to work each day in his chauffer driven Cadillac, complete with a sandwich in a brown paper bag. Following his death, two of his sons blew the family fortune by trying to corner the silver market and later declared themselves bankrupt. It is not uncommon for a miser's loot for the rainy day, to be speedily dissipated on his departure. In the workplace, the mean company is not a pleasant work environment. In contrast, the frugal company can be a good place to be but the Kamprad example is rare. Frugality is positive where there is a common purpose that is shared throughout the organisation. However, whether it is in the public or private sector, it is common for the management to keep a tight rein on spending other than on for example on junkets for themselves. There is never a shortage of rationalisations but nobody in today's workplace can be deluded into believing that bullshit is anything other than what it is. - Michael Hennigan Our Comment feature has been incorporated in the:
The
Finfacts Ireland News & Comment Service
from October 2004
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