If I didn't have an IKEA desk, I wouldn't have any desk, because I can't afford one of those big, beautiful, heavy desks that cost thousands of dollars. My IKEA desk cost less than $1,000. So the idea of an heirloom is great if you are an elite and can afford it. But if you can't, then IKEA does a great job in providing something nicely designed for much less money.

I don't mind putting something together myself if I can save money. I also paint my own house but I have to buy the paint. I suppose you can say Kelly Moore profits by making me part of its workforce.

I don't really get this article. Likewise some of the letters defending it, go below my head! I say below, because I am tired of the wealthy effete acting like any of us who do not buy expensive craftsman made furniture and clothing, are somehow below them.

I lived in California for many years, I love the place. However I also find the people to be just as shallow as anywhere else in the USA. Perhaps sometimes even shallower, because somehow so many of them think that price means quality.

No the article did not go above my head. I understand the idea about our culture of "consumerism". However I am one of those who think Ikea is a good store, with quality merchandise at a price most can afford. I always enjoyed looking in places like Scan Design, but could never even consider buying something there. You see, I'm one of those people who lives on a modest income. I always have! Ikea is good design for the masses. I'll even admit that I do shop at Wal-Mart fairly often. We don't really have any "private" stores in these parts.( unless you consider a 7 eleven to be a "Mom and Pop". So something like a Wal-Mart or Target are really our only choices.They are also, our largest local employers. Not everywhere do you have choices like San Francisco, or New York. The rest of the country shops at these chains, for the simple fact that we have little else.

I will always buy hardware at an ACE rather than at Home Depot or Lowes. I will always buy meat from a local butcher, when one exists. However, I cannot afford Macy's or Nordstroms prices. For the record, I have clothes that I have been wearing for twenty years, and guess where they came from, K'Mart and Wal-Mart. Don't fool yourselves, the same clothing they sell there is made in the same sweatshops where Macy's and Nordstroms gets theirs.

I likewise have always been a union man, and shop in a union store if I can. Here in the deep south however,Unions are a rare commodity. Not one company I have worked for, was union down here.

1. One day a year IKEA divides its gross sales worldwide among its employees worldwide - each employee makes out really well.

2. It sells aesthetics as well as quality in its low prices. Customers are not stupid. It features designer names as well as names on items.

3. I can buy a sixpack of wine glasses for under $6.00

" ... that the wealth of cheap goods available to us doesn't make our lives better......" B.S.

".... the severe exploitation of China's factory workers and the contraction of the American middle class are two sides of the same coin....."

Comment: In fact there is another side to the 'contraction of the American middle class ' argument - the so-called American public 'education system', highly overpriced for what it does produce, is further exacerbating this very same "outsourcing' problem - the president of GE said this week that he has to go overseas to get good educated employees.

Is it, bottom line, all about consumption and for many, mindless consumption.

The consumers of this country, one which prides itself of democratic principles and the rest, have filled their homes with stuff built by those living in countries under regimes that do not have time or concerns for human rights.

The unemployed in this country really have no one to blame except themselves and their willingness to disregard the condition under which their products were manufactured as long as it was good deal and compensated from their own low wages.

People who could have cared less about the communities and people devestated by Nike, the woman beat and raped to make the shoes, those subjected to assembling products with rancid materials. Nope. They cared most about a nice little pair of shoes, or a nice set of shelves, or a little car that cost less than one built in this country.

Nope, consumers at the end of the day do not care who builts it as long as it is on the shelf and they can afford to buy it. But when their job is gone, and they have no more to buy, they will whine and cry but who will be there to listen?

Zacharek seems to believe that discount culture is a new phenomenon, but it is not. Manufacturers have been producing cheap, non-durable goods for the masses, including furniture, since at least the "consumer revolution" of the mid-eighteenth century. If you look at furniture produced 50 or 100 years ago, you invariably find that it was built to last, but the reason should be obvious. The much larger quantity of non-durable furniture built by our ancestors has simply not survived. Most of it was probably chopped up for kindling after it collapsed under its own weight.

Laurel, I hear a lot of what you're saying. {I'm reading some of your other letters (hundreds+Editors Choices).} Is there really that much of a philosophical rift between the 'heartland' and the 'hipster' coasts?

And, BMerz, I think shopping at IKEA is an entirely reasonable thing to do. I liked your post

I'm from Upper Michigan; I know all about the Midwest. I love it too. I left because some of those 'heartland values' made me feel physically very unsafe, but that's another story

There is an odd string of arguments going here...

Some folks refuse to shop at Wallyworld but are enthusiastic IKEA fans (for which they are scathingly criticized). Some people defend Wallyworld (for which they are scathingly criticized). Some people scathingly criticize all retail chains (for which they are scathingly criticized), and some people are refuseniks (like me and Betzee) who (possibly because we're involved in the arts) think our whole culture is a kind of cruel joke (for which we are scathingly criticized). What a mess. I don't know where to start

Wow. All I can say is everything I needed to know about thrift stores I learned in the Upper Midwest. I feel oddly accused of being a 'thrift store hipster' (not that Laurel acuses me directly, but I feel the flack; I'm in Laurel's general target area - i.e. the West Coast - or any coast but the North Coast). {I Love the Great Lakes, Laurel; it was not a lighthearted decision to leave after 50 years.} I may have trendy hipster values lurking in my subconscious, but I think a few of us West Coast types (in spite of our trendy hipster inclinations) lament in our bones the demise of the small and unique - better than a lot of Midwesterners do. Is baulking at huge retail chains really antithetical to 'American' values? Weirdly, sometimes, it would seem so

I'm not saying I refuse to shop IKEA; they have a lot of great stuff (though I am a wallyworld refusenik). 10% of my purchasing is Not thrift store. {I have a definite weakness for Clair's bling, for example. ;-} But I try to moderate my consumption of 'brand new' stuff (usually reserving it for key items - like knickers)

You are right, of course. If everyone shopped at thrift stores... Why, personally, I think they'd cease to exist. It would be like a Star Trek future come true; we wouldn't need them. The schism between the culture of newness and the culture of second-hand wouldn't exist. Or, perhaps, rather than an imaginary utopian future, it would be more like going back to the past. That thrift stores even exist means something is distorted. We just get rid of stuff 'cause it has no value to us, psychologically. There is no attachment - no emotional investment. We're really bad materialists. {I'm speaking broadly and inclusively of American culture as a whole not of specific individuals (just in case what's-his-name wants to get in my face).}

Many here Did express a sense of attachment to things they consume. I don't think that's bad. I'm attached to my musical instrument; it means a lot to me. It wasn't a casual thoughtless purchase. {It involved phone calls, weeks of negotiating with the Luthier, special shipment... And, it was MADE IN WISCONSIN - hand crafted, in fact.}

I think I'm saying our actions as consumers would be better for everyone if we were more thoughtful and deliberate. Sure, I save money by thrift shopping. But I deliberately buy things that are not new. I deliberately prefer to buy things from friends. I deliberately buy things from local shops. I tip well, too, and part of the reward is that Bartender remembers me. That local shopkeeper remembers me

Heh. It's pretty old-fashioned, really. Imagine, a hipster like me... Very strange

{Time to press 'Publish' before this gets any more mish-mashy ;-}