Here's what I wrote on Monday:

Philosophical virtue ethics typically concern themselves with the inner states of individuals - an action counts as good because the agent who brings it about was motivated by a virtuous motivation. The analog of this is for design is the idea that a(n object of) design would count as good if the designer made her design choices in a virtuous way. I think that there is a perfectly reasonable concern about the applicability of this ethical model to design for the precise reason that designs and actions have very different ontological statuses.

Today, I'm going to articulate that difference, and illustrate it with one of the design virtues nearest and dearest to DLB's heart: economy.

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Sold Out (1929), cartoon by Rollin Kirby depicting the repercussions of the Stock Market Crash of 1929.

In an America whose economy is ravaged by the twin budgetary disasters of the Iraq War and the Wall Street bailout, money's scarcer than it used to be. Coupled with the success of the Democrats in Washington this week, and thus the looming possibility of near-term financial regulatory tightening, the conventional wisdom says that clients are going to tighten their grip on their money, and thus, designers are going to have to tighten their belts.

Schematically, a more challenging climate for business tends to mean a more challenging climate for design. But does this have to be the case?

This question is one that DLB ponders all the time. We think that a big part of the problem is the function that both clients and designers alike understand design to serve. Specifically, back in the old America, money was cheap. This meant design could be used in the service of long shots for maximizing profits: just-maybe type social networking strategies, fancy textures on every element of the webpage, the list goes on. Basically, design didn't have to be accountable for its ends, because companies could afford to bet on both red and black.

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