A globe-trotting New York writer indulges in a thought experiment as to what would happen if we suddenly stopped buying things we don’t need and lived simpler lives with only essentials. A strong condemnation of consumerism and the culture of ever increasing acquisitions, this treatise is loaded with keen thought-provoking observations spanning philosophy, psychology, history, and economics.
Decoupling ever-increasing consumerism from the effects on carbon emissions is unrealistic, but is the aim of all efforts to reduce our carbon footprint. It is simply not possible to continue to use earth’s resources at a greater rate than they can be replaced and still maintain ‘sustainability’. Yet no politician is likely to ever encourage less spending or the deliberate precipitation of an economic recession.
The garment and fashion industry comes in for particular scorn as we are driven by the psychology of keeping up with the Jones’s to buy cheap products that are rarely used rather than conserve and repair clothing that provides the basic necessities of comfort and utility. Advertising and marketing drives us to “spend money that we don’t have on things that we don’t need to create impressions on people we don’t care about.” This is perhaps the best description of the Veblen effect, named after Thorstein Veblen whose 1889 classic The Theory of The Leisure Class, is a still- relevant condemnation of unfettered capitalism and materialism. The faulty measure of human progress represented by the need for ever increasing GDP growth of nation is thoroughly trashed.
I found the discussion of “downshifting” movements and seeking personal ‘authenticity’ to be etherial and bordering on pop psychology, and the discussion of moving the consumer culture online is highly theoretical.
I try to ignore the ubiquitous messages urging me to spend, with limited success. But my wife and I recently traded two fossil-fuel-powered vehicles for one all-electric one. I long ago adopted a policy of discarding or recycling an equivalent item of clothing if I purchase or am given a new one. Besides the exercise benefit of climbing the stairs to our twelfth floor apartment a couple times a day, there must be a savings of about 1700 foot pounds or 2300 joules of energy not used by the elevator, per trip, not counting how far it travels up or down before and after lifting me. Trivial, perhaps, even cumulatively, but I makes me feel I am doing something.
Like Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us, this is a thought-provoking but highly theoretical thought experiment about the future. But it is also humourless and needlessly wordy. Not for everyone.
Thanks,
Book Browse.
The Passionate Reader 