The Death knells of the Consumer Economy
"Consumption - It's the new national pastime. Fuck
baseball, it's consumption. The only true lasting
American value that's left: buyin' things! Buying
things. People spending money they don't have on things
they don't need - MONEY THEY DON'T HAVE ON THINGS THEY
DON'T NEED - so they can max out their credit cards and
spend the rest of their lives paying 18% interest on
something that cost 12.50! And they didn't like it when
they got it home anyway.
Not too bright folks, not too fucking bright."
George Carlin
We now have a light bulb that will last 25 years. Think about that.
You buy one or more for the various lights in your home and you
don't need to purchase another replacement for 25 years. I will
bet you dollars to donuts that it will be 50 or 100 years in very
short order.
Donal has a blog on the Farmers Dilemma that goes into the
problem of local farming vs big agriculture. But we now have the
ability to produce enough food to feed everyone in this country 10
times over and do it in a healthy, sustainable manner. Large or
small because we have the technology to do so. The problem is
that we in this country do not need this much food but other
countries do. And to ship the excess abroad goes against our
puritan capitalistic work ethic we keep holding on to with
such a death's grip.
I personally own a television set that is over 10 years old. Oh
it takes the picture tube a few minutes for the colors to stabilize
but other than that it works just fine. No problems. In fact most
electronics will out last the owners. So why produce more ?
The fact is that we now have the technology to produce most things
in as vast a quantity as we want and make them last nearly for ever.
But how much of this stuff do we really need ? The cell phone
you just dumped into the garbage because you changed carriers
works just fine but not with your current carrier. But it could. In fact
there is no technical reason what so ever why any cell phone
could not work with any carrier. Except then people would not
buy nearly as many.
We have the technology to build cars that can get decent gas
mileage and have them last a lot longer than they current do.
But if we did, people would not buy nearly as many or as often.
We now have Solar Cell roofing shingles that can be installed
just like regular shingles. You just need an electrician to wire
them up. But if every home did this, the electric utility use would
drop dramatically.
We consume and purchase what we do not based on any real
need but on a manufactured need. We are constantly told the
that we must have the newest, latest and greatest car, house,
pharmaceuticals, medical test, candy bar, soda and on and on.
And that any time we have a problem we need to consult a lawyer
or a doctor or what not.
And we put people to work to manufacture this need and to fulfill
it as well. All the while using and abusing the resources of this
planet to do so. And accomplishing little in the way of real
advancement.
Our capitalist system is over 2000 years old. People have been
trading goods and services for eons. And it worked very well as long as
the needs and wants were fairly equal to the products available.
Money in one form or another was used as a medium of exchange
for nearly as long.
But as soon as the production of food and articles started to exceed
the wants and needs of the people, it stopped working quite as well.
So we had to artificially increase these wants and needs. But it does
not and cannot last. This is basically what has happened and had
happened in the past. And it will only get worse because our ability
to produce can only get better and more efficient. We simply
can no longer hope to continue trying to invent artificial needs.
We now have more countries entering into the global economy
that we ever had with more and more production. Out current
capitalist method has to be revamped and overhauled to account
for this. The puritan work ethic simply does not work any more.
Another way has to be found if we as a species have any hope
of surviving.
C
baseball, it's consumption. The only true lasting
American value that's left: buyin' things! Buying
things. People spending money they don't have on things
they don't need - MONEY THEY DON'T HAVE ON THINGS THEY
DON'T NEED - so they can max out their credit cards and
spend the rest of their lives paying 18% interest on
something that cost 12.50! And they didn't like it when
they got it home anyway.
Not too bright folks, not too fucking bright."
George Carlin
We now have a light bulb that will last 25 years. Think about that.
You buy one or more for the various lights in your home and you
don't need to purchase another replacement for 25 years. I will
bet you dollars to donuts that it will be 50 or 100 years in very
short order.
Donal has a blog on the Farmers Dilemma that goes into the
problem of local farming vs big agriculture. But we now have the
ability to produce enough food to feed everyone in this country 10
times over and do it in a healthy, sustainable manner. Large or
small because we have the technology to do so. The problem is
that we in this country do not need this much food but other
countries do. And to ship the excess abroad goes against our
puritan capitalistic work ethic we keep holding on to with
such a death's grip.
I personally own a television set that is over 10 years old. Oh
it takes the picture tube a few minutes for the colors to stabilize
but other than that it works just fine. No problems. In fact most
electronics will out last the owners. So why produce more ?
The fact is that we now have the technology to produce most things
in as vast a quantity as we want and make them last nearly for ever.
But how much of this stuff do we really need ? The cell phone
you just dumped into the garbage because you changed carriers
works just fine but not with your current carrier. But it could. In fact
there is no technical reason what so ever why any cell phone
could not work with any carrier. Except then people would not
buy nearly as many.
We have the technology to build cars that can get decent gas
mileage and have them last a lot longer than they current do.
But if we did, people would not buy nearly as many or as often.
We now have Solar Cell roofing shingles that can be installed
just like regular shingles. You just need an electrician to wire
them up. But if every home did this, the electric utility use would
drop dramatically.
We consume and purchase what we do not based on any real
need but on a manufactured need. We are constantly told the
that we must have the newest, latest and greatest car, house,
pharmaceuticals, medical test, candy bar, soda and on and on.
And that any time we have a problem we need to consult a lawyer
or a doctor or what not.
And we put people to work to manufacture this need and to fulfill
it as well. All the while using and abusing the resources of this
planet to do so. And accomplishing little in the way of real
advancement.
Our capitalist system is over 2000 years old. People have been
trading goods and services for eons. And it worked very well as long as
the needs and wants were fairly equal to the products available.
Money in one form or another was used as a medium of exchange
for nearly as long.
But as soon as the production of food and articles started to exceed
the wants and needs of the people, it stopped working quite as well.
So we had to artificially increase these wants and needs. But it does
not and cannot last. This is basically what has happened and had
happened in the past. And it will only get worse because our ability
to produce can only get better and more efficient. We simply
can no longer hope to continue trying to invent artificial needs.
We now have more countries entering into the global economy
that we ever had with more and more production. Out current
capitalist method has to be revamped and overhauled to account
for this. The puritan work ethic simply does not work any more.
Another way has to be found if we as a species have any hope
of surviving.
C
Advertisement
Like maybe work 20 hour weeks?
November 1, 2009 8:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually...we may have to consider that. As well as other options. Interestingly enough I remember reading and hearing back in the late 50s predictions that advance technology and increased productivity would enable shorter work weeks and more "leisure time" but the "work ethic" people really hated that idea and still do.
C
November 1, 2009 9:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
You might want to spend some of all that extra time off with a dictionary.
One death knell, like one death rattle, is sufficient... unless the thing comes back to life.
November 2, 2009 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I still get to keep my snuggie and shamwows and stuff though, right?
November 1, 2009 9:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Snuggies could decrease utility bills more effectively than solar shingles. Innuit were surviving very well in igloos that had indoor temperature ca. 0 F (or less). (It helped that they did not worry about bursting water pipes.)
More seriously, I recommeded this thread, but cmaukonen has to many non-sequiturs.
Is consumption a hedonistic pursuit of pleasure, or a social interaction? Haida Indians were compulsively saving, only to distribute all saved goods to neighbor in a grand party that would impress them all. Thus it was always better to have, say, 200 blankets (snuggies would qualify, I guess) than 100. So what would it do to a Haida if he could amass 200 blankets after one month of work? Then one would have to distribute I-phones to neighbors? Or sets of Calfalon pots?
Canadians found this "potlatch" custom so contrary to THEIR ethics that they outlawed it (back in 19th century).
I think that we have separate sources of systemic contradictions. One is hooking the economy on consumers buying more that they can afford. Rational Chinese save enough, but somehow they are hooked to having irrational consumers to buy they goods. Why they not take it easy? If they need someone syphoning goods from their country, lest the economy stops dead in the tracks, they could as well drawn them in the Pacific, so they could as well save the shipping costs and have the government confiscate the surplus of goods and organized potlatches. But this would not do. I guess we have an irrational system that needs an illusion of rationality to operate. Looking behind the Wizard's curtain leads to the ruin of all of us!
November 1, 2009 10:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess we have an irrational system that needs an illusion of rationality to operate. Looking behind the Wizard's curtain leads to the ruin of all of us.
I think you just answered your own questions about this blog.
C
November 1, 2009 10:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
One thing that needs to be done is to get rid of the blood sucking leeches and pimps of Wall Street the add nothing to humanity and society.
That would be a help right there.
C
November 1, 2009 9:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications/downloads/prosperity_without_growth_report.pdf
November 1, 2009 10:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Beautiful!
November 2, 2009 12:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Or maybe we could channel the work ethic into a surplus which we give away to the billion going hungry.
November 2, 2009 12:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am not in disagreement with the above premise. When my current car wears out is when I replace it. I last replaced mine five years ago and it gets 30mpg in city driving and does me just fine. My tv is also a few months shy of ten years old and works just as perfectly as the day I bought it. It is quite obviously a tube type and is a Sony and will probably last a lot longer.
Having the latest and greatest isn't necessary for most people or for typical usage.
However there is a problem with this premise which introduces an intractable dilemma. If we consume less, that means we make less, and that means there is less for people to do and that means they have less or even no money. I own a small business and I am absolutely anal about quality. However that causes my products to be 10% to 15% more costly than my competion but also delivers reliabilty and longevity that easily exceeds that of competing products and delivers better long term value for my customers. It also means I don't sell as many. There is a value proposition to be made here which guides businesses. In many cases products evolve very rapidly because of technology. Because of requirements constantly changing the need to meet those requirements demands greater capability with an inverse cost relationship. The productivity equation is unstoppable.
I offer this real world example of the dilemma. A very long time ago automotive carburetor bodies were made of steel. They were individually machined one at a time. Then they were changed to aluminum. Then they were changed to being machined using a primitive automated process. Then this process was further refined so the carburetor bodies were produced using a highly automated process. Now they are made with an almost fully automated process capable of producing literally thousands of carburetor bodies with one employee in a single work shift. And the quality and relibility are very high and easily exceeds what we started with. Now bear in mind the typical fuel injected carburation of today is very different from anything of the past. However the notion of a metal manufacturing / machining process remains.
The same applies to electronics. Very early chip designs placed tens, then hundreds of transistors on a silicon die. Today that number exceeds one billion transistors on a silicon die of approximately one square inch which is mass produced in unbelieveable quantity. You can't even make a practical comparison between the amount of 'work' a modern processor can do relative to their 'long ago' predecessors. Our modern world, with all the people and all the needs that entails, just would not be possible without this technological advance. I have read estimates that there is not enough people on this earth to perform the millions of man years of computations that are performed every day by these marvels of technology. One accountant can easily manage the payroll for a small company of forty or fifty people in only eight hours of a forty hour workweek. And process automation can easily reduce that by half or more.
November 2, 2009 5:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
People you have partially made my point. With production and quality increasing, we need fewer and fewer people for the same task.
We have very high unemployment now. Consider how high it would be if people started buying only that which they need or need to replace instead of anything any time they choose.
C
November 2, 2009 9:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
We very clearly agree upon and understand very well the problem before us. As I said, the introduction of mass production and high quality products reduces consumption and thus requires fewer workers. Catch 22.
I actually know of factories which are 100% automated where they have no people except for a geek or two in a computer center for their third shift operations. The factory continues in full production for that entire shift without a single person on the factory floor. I worked on factory automation systems on the computer / control side of this stuff for most of my career. Not all product manufacturing currently lends itself to this level of automation. But that changes constantly as the available technology evolves.
November 2, 2009 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
In Conspicuous Consumption We Trust... we should print the creed on our money, never mind "In God We Trust."
On the other hand, we could just plain knock it off and allow the "consumer economy" to perish.
Which brings to mind a little something... most people think I'm crazy (and they could be right), but that's beside the point.
Once upon a time, having been forced to participate in a "team building" exercise, I was asked to reveal two simple “facts” about myself: one true and one a lie. My colleagues were then required to guess which of the two “facts” was true. I said 1) I’ve never owned a car, and 2) I have a three-legged pet raccoon. My fellow employees determined that #1 was the lie, and that I, in fact, had a three-legged pet raccoon. It just goes to show how people are wired to think in this country.
Changing hearts and minds... that IS the issue, isn't it?
November 2, 2009 5:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
the capitalist system is dead... look at the banking industry they had been manipulating the economy with deceit and greed on a scale so massive probably not too be seen again in our lifetime..and instead of taking the bull by the horns and instilling tight new monetary regulations and removing these egomaniacs and there lobbyists from power the government cowered and gave them huge sums of money..almost 16 million unemployed, 15 million illegals,46 million without heath care, another 3 to 4 million homeless and another 30 million plus in jail,2 wars to finance etc. etc. the only direction the us is going is down, a monumental task for any administration...but, instead of putting on surgical gloves the obama administration is using bandaids what a pathetic joke.
November 8, 2009 1:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
the capitalist system is dead... look at the banking industry they had been manipulating the economy with deceit and greed on a scale so massive probably not too be seen again in our lifetime..and instead of taking the bull by the horns and instilling tight new monetary regulations and removing these egomaniacs and there lobbyists from power the government cowered and gave them huge sums of money..almost 16 million unemployed, 15 million illegals,46 million without heath care, another 3 to 4 million homeless and another 30 million plus in jail,2 wars to finance etc. etc. the only direction the us is going is down, a monumental task for any administration...but, instead of putting on surgical gloves the obama administration is using bandaids what a pathetic joke.
November 8, 2009 1:33 AM | Reply | Permalink