Reference reading
Stinginess
Refusing fitting provision for review, maintenance, compensation or recourse despite resources available for their proper use.
The system has a generous display budget. Its maintenance tool is too much to ask.
Habitual unwillingness to part with resources even when their proper use calls for expenditure or provision.
Frugality, necessary limits and declining an unwarranted claim differ.
How it takes hold
The demonstration has an ornate display. Its modest maintenance tool is refused as unnecessary expense despite available means.
Stinginess withholds resources where fitting use calls for provision. Review, upkeep and recourse belong to an undertaking's responsibilities as much as its visible launch.
A small refusal transfers difficulty to unsupported maintainers and people seeking correction. It can undermine a larger investment.
Finding the distinction
Illustrative situation: a system needs an affordable maintenance tool.
Too stingy: fitting provision is refused despite available means.
Fitting: actual responsibilities govern expense.
Overcorrection: every request is funded regardless of purpose.
Frugality avoids unfitting expense; stinginess refuses fitting expense. Negligence can disregard care for other reasons.
Limited means, necessary priorities and unwarranted demands differ. Responsibility stays proportionate to capacity.
Counterfeit of Frugality: Maintenance provision is refused despite available means and a clear proper use. Genuine Frugality protects value rather than merely preserving unspent resources.
A response that restores something
Budget for continued responsibilities alongside launch. Review and correction form part of operation.
Insufficient means may require narrower scope rather than promises sustained by unsupported people.
Generosity can be modest: the tool, time or access a worthwhile purpose properly needs.
Other perspectives
a gain less important to most of those concerned in making them
William Morris · Hopes and Fears for Art
Morris asks how a benefit reaches those doing the work, relevant to an economy achieved through unsupported maintainers.
can still less be extorted by force
Adam Smith · The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Smith limits compelled generosity. The article's fitting provision depends on actual responsibility and capacity, not unlimited demands.
Read and compare
Which fitting provision is this economy withholding?
Generosity · Frugality · Diligence
These are constructive virtue readings, not a list of automatic opposites. This reference article does not score character or assign a vice to its reader.