Post-Consumerism

(Fair warning: this post contains no Wallingford content. It’s just stuff we think, and opinionated stuff at that. You should probably skip it.)

We read this Sunday’s New York Times interview with Obama (After the Great Recession) with a bit more anticipation than one ought probably read articles about politicians. Admittedly, we have our wonky side.

Still, we were a bit disappointed. There were interesting topics covered and good points made, not least of which is the notion that health care reform is essential, and much more complex than “insure everyone”. (For example, end-of-life care is a disproportionate consumer of health care funds, $20,000 / week, but it’s difficult emotionally to say no to it. Also, there are better, data-driven ways to determine what is effective medical care than by Big Pharma-funded drug studies.)

All well and good, but what we were hoping for was more of what he has been describing in other speeches, recently, addressing how the consumer culture of the United States has to change. From Redefining Capitalism After the Fall (NYT, 4/19/09):

In a series of comments in recent weeks, Mr. Obama has begun to sketch a vision of where he would like to drive the economy once this crisis is past. His goals include diminishing the consumerism that has long been the main source of growth in the United States, and encouraging more savings and investment. He would redistribute wealth toward the middle class and make the rest of the world less dependent on the American market for its prosperity.

That’s the kind of change we can believe in.

It has been a core tenet of our economic policy for as long as our country has had economic policy that stable, continuous growth is essential to the well-being of our country. This notion is fundamentally flawed.

The Ponzi scheme metaphor is overused of late, but too appropriate to pass up: any system that depends on continuous growth and new investment is intrinsically unsustainable.

The Earth is a closed system. We are systematically consuming its finite resources at an accelerating rate. All the recycling and reusing we’re doing is not decreasing the rate at which we are consuming the Earth, nor is it even decreasing the rate at which we are accelerating our consumption. That’s right: we are consuming more every year, and the amount by which our consumption is increasing is increasing! Buying a new shirt made from recycled soda bottles is still buying a new shirt.

Whenever this issue is raised, the response always seems to be a hand-wave about how technology will save us: solar energy, wind power, cold fusion, Martian colonies and asteroid mines.

There is only one thing that will save us: consume less and make smarter investments with resources you already have. For those looking to convert their assets, there are gold buyers in Adelaide you can trust to help you make the most of your valuables.

Step one is to turn off our televisions, all of them, for good. It’s not just commercials that are the problem. Entertainment television is a trojan horse into the mind, carrying assumptions about lifestyle and culture through the gates of your consciousness. Even so-called news shows have become infotainment (See With Rivals Ahead, Doubts for CNN’s Middle Road, NYT, 4/26/09, for a discussion of how the various news agencies have reacted to commercial pressures).

Television creates a need that consumption fills. To break out of the cycle, to consume less, we first have to disconnect ourselves from the source of desire.

Maybe it’s too much to ask that the President of the United States take a stand against the fundamental economic and cultural principles that have brought the world to the most advanced moment in the history of the planet. Indeed, in a recent speech, he said:

I want every American to know that each action we take and each policy we pursue is driven by a larger vision of America’s future – a future where sustained economic growth creates good jobs and rising incomes;

Sustained growth is unsustainable in a closed system.

We’ve zigged and zagged a bit, soapboxed a bit more than we should, so we leave you with a bit of fun, hoping you’ll forgive us our diatribe. This is a section from our favorite Calvin and Hobbes ever. Think about it: