Claim. Thrift in eating, dressing, bathing, and material use is exemplary not because of personal asceticism but because the savings are aimed at saving the nation and the world; an unfrugal America cannot become the world’s respected center.
Elaboration. SMM reframes thrift in providential scope: “We are not saving to become rich. We are doing so to save the nation. The reason I say to America, ‘America must be frugal and should save!’ is in order to save the world. America collects the most taxes in the world. If it had collected a lot of taxes for the world, then America would have been respected by the world” (8.2. Thrift, 111-256, 1981.2.22). The personal example is severe: bathing once every three days, eating three-fifths of the plate, using one piece of toilet paper, refraining from soft drinks (ibid, 131-283, 1984.5.4; ibid, 57-197, 1972.5.31). The labor of saving is total: “I have shed blood and tears without rest twenty-four hours a day to save one more penny. I have spread the money gathered in this way across the entire world. I do not even have a piece of paper in my possession” (ibid, 101-161, 1978.10.29). The horizon is generational: “After ten years, a hundred years, or a thousand years of bequeathing a tradition based on such an ideology, the Republic of Korea will surely become a people that can win the support of the world” (ibid, 109-104, 1980.10.26). Thrift is therefore a public, providence-shaped discipline.