Advantages & disadvantages — Should everyone own a car, a television and a fridge?

It is sometimes proposed that every household should own a car, a television and a refrigerator. In my view the disadvantages of this do not outweigh the advantages overall, although the three items are far from equivalent and the car deserves separate treatment.

Two of the three genuinely raise living standards. A refrigerator allows families to store food safely, which reduces both food poisoning and the waste involved in shopping daily in small quantities. It also saves several hours a week that can be spent working or with children. A television, meanwhile, brings news, public health messages and educational programming into homes that may be a long way from any school or library. Neither device is a luxury: they form part of a decent standard of living, and denying them to poorer households would simply widen inequality.

The car is a different matter. Mass ownership of private vehicles produces congestion, air pollution and road deaths on a scale that public transport never does. It also reshapes cities permanently, since once districts are built around driving, urban sprawl makes walking and buses impractical for everybody else. Universal ownership of all three items generates significant electronic waste as well, because products are now replaced every few years rather than repaired. Heavy television viewing, meanwhile, contributes to increasingly sedentary lifestyles.

In conclusion, refrigerators and televisions bring benefits that clearly justify their costs, so the disadvantages do not outweigh the advantages when the question is taken as a whole. Blanket ownership of cars, however, is the exception, and governments would serve people far better by meeting the same need with fast, affordable public transport.