Boots theory

The Sam Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness, often called simply the boots theory, is an economic theory first popularised by English fantasy writer Terry Pratchett in his 1993 Discworld novel Men at Arms. In the novel, Sam Vimes, the captain of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, reasons that poverty causes greater expenses to the poor than to those who are richer. Since its publication, the theory has received wider attention, especially in regard to the effect of increasing prices of daily necessities.

Conception

In the Discworld series of novels, Sam Vimes is the curmudgeonly but incorruptible captain of the City Watch of the medieval city-state of Ankh-Morpork. The boots theory comes from a passage of the 1993 novel Men at Arms, the second novel to focus on the City Watch, in which he muses about his experiences of poverty as compared to his fiancée Lady Sybil Ramkin's conception of poverty:

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

The theory has its antecedents; in Robert Tressell's 1914 novel The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists, protagonist Frank Owen directly refers to clothes and boots as necessities where the total cost over time is greater for the working classes, as "[they] can seldom or never afford to buy good things" and therefore must "buy cheap rubbish, which is dear at any price". Likewise, in a 1954 column for The Observer, humourist Paul Jennings made similar comments about boots, and the adage "buy cheap, buy twice" has sustained itself as a Northern English adage. It has thus been theorized that Pratchett drew inspiration from these antecedents.

Since the publication of Men at Arms, others have also made reference to the theory. In 2013, a ConsumerAffairs article made reference to the theory in regard to purchasing items on credit, specifically regarding children's boots from the retailer Fingerhut; a $25 pair of boots, at the interest rates being offered, would cost $37 if purchased over seven months. In 2016, the left-wing blog Dorset Eye also ran an article discussing the theory, giving fuel poverty in the United Kingdom as an example of its application, citing a 2014 Office for National Statistics (ONS) report that those who pre-paid for electricity—who were most likely to be subject to fuel poverty—paid 8% more on their electricity bills than those who paid by direct debit.

Vimes Boots Index

In a January 2022 opinion piece for The Guardian, antipoverty activist and food journalist Jack Monroe announced her own price index, which they called the Vimes Boots Index (VBI), to track the average prices of cheapest foods, as opposed to the ONS's official Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Retail Price Index (RPI), which are price indices tracking average household spending that are not adjusted for income. Speaking in the context of the official rate of inflation reaching 5.4 per cent, Monroe argued that the CPI did not properly reflect the priorities of the average consumer; in particular they cited items in the ONS's 700-item "basket" – including legs of lamb, televisions, and champagne – whose lower rises in price, she argued, had the effect of depressing the effective cost of inflation. Monroe also cited the withdrawal of many value-branded items from supermarkets – for example, a packet of ten stock cubes from Sainsbury's raising from 10p in 2012 to 39p (for beef and chicken) or £1 (for vegetable) in 2022 – as contributing to increased food poverty. The estate of Pratchett, who died in 2015, gave its full support to Monroe's campaign, quoting Pratchett to say, "Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness."

Shortly after Monroe's announcement, the ONS stated they were going to move to personalised inflation rates that take people's income into account. The ONS's head of inflation statistics, Mike Hardie, wrote in a blog post on the department's website that "the average annual rate of inflation can conceal a lot", and agreed that some items analysed in its basket – such as fruit drinks and margarine – had experienced annual price increases of over 30 per cent, and in some cases, over 100 per cent. Monroe hopes to have the first edition of the VBI published mid-February 2022.

An article exploring how the VBI applies to various supermarkets in the UK noted it applied variably across chains but held up overall, noting the "ONS collects inflation data through in-store visits, tracking prices against a fixed list of products. If one of the items is delisted, they find a replacement of similar quality. However, if a value item disappears altogether, ONS says that 'breaks the price chain' and it will no longer be included in the statistic. Therefore, in cases like Asda's cheapest rice or Morrisons' 'wonky' apples, though shoppers are suddenly forced to pay more, this is not reflected in the inflation figure."

Asda, whose prices Monroe cited in their tweet as an example of inflation, has "taken on board" the concerns raised by VBI, and stated they are taking steps to offer more budget items across all locations. CEO of Tesco John Allan said, "I think the combination of increasing energy prices, the impact of National Insurance increases [in April] on people's incomes, and to a much much lesser extent increasing food prices, is going to squeeze the hardest-up still harder." He did not comment on the state of the industry, but stated that Tesco's food inflation rate had been kept at one per cent over the last three months.