Don Arthur wrote an excellent post at Troppo last week, which is an object lesson in how ideological positions collapse when confronted with careful empirical work:
Australia is in the midst of a flat-screen TV crisis, says Clive Hamilton. Driven by an insatiable desire for “stuff”, we spend more time chasing money and less doing the kinds of things that would really make us happier and more fulfilled — spending time with friends and family, getting involved in the local community, and developing our skills and creativity. Greed and materialism are making us miserable.
But there’s no evidence that people in affluent countries like Australia are greedier or more materialistic than in the past. The major reason we buy more stuff is because stuff has become cheaper. The increase in working hours is not being driven by an increasing desire for stuff but by increases in the cost of things like housing and services.
Hamilton, to put it mildly, has some questions to answer around the basis for his “Affluenza” claims. It would also be interesting, also, to trace exactly why such claims seem to strike a chord.
I’ve long thought this sort of mindset is particularly politically pernicious, and so I’d completely endorse the conclusion to the post as well:
The affluenza myth is both self indulgent and dangerous. It’s self indulgent because it allows affluent, educated people to blame the world’s problems on the consumption habits and psychological weaknesses of less educated, households. And it’s dangerous because it distracts attention away from serious social problems such as the lack of affordable housing for low income earners and the problem of raising taxes to fund redistributive policies in the future.
Yes Mark, and I think another factor at work is an underlying cultural bias that venerates asceticism as an ideal, and from which our material circumstances remove us ever further.
Whether it’s a Catholic guilt thing, a Protestant work ethic thing, a secular Marxist anxiety about wealth, a latter-day deep Green piety, or some other spiritually-based derogation of the real and material — many people just ain’t comfortable with being, well, comfortable…
Fair points all, but there’s a difference between ‘comfortable’ and ‘must upgrade my iThing every time Apple puts out a new iteration of the product, but screw selling the old one to someone else, I’ll just chuck it’. And its not the ‘less educated’ or well-off I see living like that.
Where do I get a refund for this hair shirt?
I’m seeing a pattern at the moment with the working and non working where people in work are working themselves to death doing enough work for two or three people (with loads of unpaid overtime) and others struggling to find enough work.
I wonder how that figures into this?
One possible way of directly disproving the affluenza theme might be to audit a suitable sample of the nation’s self-storage facilities. Correct me if I’m wrong but did these mushrooming warehouses of personal affects exist prior to say 1970. Once you have allowed for people moving/travelling or simply ‘between things’ it ought to be possible to do an inventory that might show some correspondence, such as a preponderance of superceded gadgetry eg small flat screens.
Although everyone decries the expense of a large screen TV, its still cheaper than taking the family to the cinema, costs the tax payers less than your subscription to the opera, ballet, symphony orchestra or theatre company.
Yep I like living in the inner suburbs decrying the outer suburbanites dependence on cars as I jump on a tram but I live in the inner suburbs because growing up in the outer suburbs I hated the lack of public transport at night and on weekends.
If “stuff” is getting cheaper but housing and services more expensive, then why aren’t people buying the same amount of stuff rather than more stuff and diverting the saved money to housing and services rather than deciding to work more?
In the house where I live there is a twennyysummink couple. They have a big flat screen TV and all that stuff. Now they have installed Chooks and Ducks (for egg production) in the backyard and are growing food for them. So are some of their friends. They cook great meals, all sorts of cuisine, and grow most of the herbs and spices themselves. Both are at Uni.
I would say that Hamilton needs to get out more.
I also detect a significant movement towards city gardens and orchards etc. This despite the best efforts of the greens to make such activities into a religious cult.
Huggy.
Chris, your suggestion over-simplifies the issue to the point of nonsense.
It’s not like “oh my rent/mortgage went up $20 a week, I’ll spend $20 less on going to the movies”. It’s more like “oh my rent/mortgage 10 years ago was 25% of my income, and now it’s 45%”.
You can’t redress a shortfall like that except by earning more. Or skipping meals. Pick one.
And billie’s point is especially apposite. The middle-class critique of plasma-screens and Foxtel as a ‘frivolous expense’ conceals the fact that, at around $1000 a year, they’re actually about the cheapest method of mass cultural “consumption” available. Way cheaper by the minute than the footy, or the ballet.
The critique reminds me of the 19th century British Victorians who lamented that all the factory workers in London existed on nothing but white bread, tea, sugar and gin. What’s with the bourgeois always looking down their noses at how the ‘masses’ spend what little wealth they possess?
The problem with the Affluenza case is the same problem with this response – over generalisation. There are a lot of people who are living the lifestyle Hamilton critiques, but he tried to suggest almost everyone was involved. The fact that there are not as many people do this as Hamilton may have suggested doesn’t mean its an irrelevant social phenomenon that doesn’t deserve discussion, just that it should be kept in perspective.
Not sure I can agree, #10 – I think the extent to which affluenza afflicts us is far less than frequently claimed, but I’ve gone from pauper uni student to fulltime professional over the course of the last two years and you can bet your arse I’m exhibiting more symptoms than I used to. I make an effort to be reasonably ascetic (joys of a religious upbringing, heh), but my promise to myself that I wouldn’t accumulate bunches of crap is slowly going out the window (books, wonderful books!) and now that I own a car I’m rather less likely to suck it up and walk the 15 minutes to the gym. Especially if I have to go grocery shopping after.
I don’t feel particularly awful about it, and I’m not too pleased with the shaming overtones that are contained in the affluenza frame, but I’m not about to deny that the phenomenon exists or claim that its not common. That would fly in the face of just about everything I’ve observed about the way people live. We spend what we earn for the most part, and often that spending is on toys and conveniences.
Fair enough Feral @ 10 — but that’s what I took to be the entire point of the Troppo post — Hamilton didn’t keep it in perspective, and it’s useful and interesting to ponder the reasons why…
…Because those reasons have real effects in the real world — not only those two very important ones noted in Don Arthur’s conclusion but also, I would add, in terms of how the middle-class habitually use disapproval of the leisure of the working classes as a cultural marker and perpetuator of boundaries.
To expand on my first response at #1, I think notions of the ‘nobility of suffering’ drive much of the zeal for some participants in the deep Green movement. It’s a new expression of old ascetic idealism that goes back to the Essenes and probably way before that. Christianity picked it up too, and its spiritual credentials leant political legitimacy to feudalism throughout medieval Europe.
I think it’s easy for people who haven’t suffered to find ‘nobility’ in it. But there’s nothing ennobling about a life of deprivation and toil. The idea served the Church throughout the middle ages to preserve a social order that saw most of the population immiserated. It’s distressing to see it (asceticism) make a return, albeit cloaked, in the zealous prescriptions of some bourgeois who have a complex about their wealth.
Do I have the answers for how to provide affordable, sustainable housing for an expanding population? Nope. If anybody knows how to build a solar-powered house for a family of six for $500+GST, please mail it to Clive Hamilton and Don Arthur — then we can all get some sleep!
I know I don’t exactly get about a lot, but I know only one person with a flat screen Tv. And its not like a lot of my friends can’t afford to buy one. I probably could’ve got one a year or so ago but a mate of mine told me the screens damage easy, so I got a normal TV.
Now washing machines are a different matter. I got a second hand one for $40. New they cost &600. You can’t afford that on the pension.
Maybe given my experience with my previous TV, we should be questioning the profiteering bastards who make stuff that are designed to break down the day after the warranty expires.
Chris said:
Stuff has gotten SPECTACULARLY cheaper and housing/services more expensive. Seems fair enough that faced with the prospect of taking on a $400K mortgage or just buying a new flat screen tele the latter might be the more likely outcome.
My in-laws are looking to buy a new TV. This will be their 3rd TV purchase in 40 years (they look after their stuff). Their current TV cost $2000 in 1982! Apparently Australian CPI is about 3x that of CPI in 1982 so the equivalent purchase would be $6000 (have I done that right?). They are looking at spending about $1000 for a significantly larger and in many ways technologically superior product for 1/6 of the price they paid in 1982. That represents quite some saving.
I think some of the ‘data’ Don quotes is misleading – like that ABS stuff on how few minutes we spend shopping. I think you have to add on the thinking about shopping – browsing the catalogues, the holiday destination resort websites, the ‘life-style’ supplements ….
Then there’s all the other time people spend on their self-managed superfund and other investments, comparing types of ‘plans’ (for health insurance, telecommunications etc). People are concentrating a lot more on money, and spending it, than they used to.
And we should pay attention to the dangers of our too-comfortable lives because it’s our dependence on all these conveniences and luxuries that makes us unable to imagine living without them. When confronted with the question of whether, in the face of climate change, we could live more simply, I think a lot of people just can’t imagine it, and won’t accept it.
I think you’re bang-on the money, Mercurious, in tying this so solidly to class, and specifically to a Victorian ideal. It reminds me nothing so much as the “poor house” ethic, where unless the downtrodden were judged as [morally] ‘worthy’, they were denied welfare.
Obviously outcomes, etc. are all very different, but I feel the reasoning is coming from entirely the same place, i.e. if poor people do not live an appropriately moribund existence, they are not deserving of rights, etc.
We saw this last year with the announcement of the Rudd government’s first stimulus package. Lots of people I spoke to were decrying the tendency of the less well-off to splurge their cheques on new TVs or playing the pokies, as if that money doesn’t circulate any more productively than that spent by their superiors on restaurants with $40 main courses or on Belvoir subscriptions. It’s class snobbery.
Well, I’m with you there Mr Denmore, but in defence of expensive restaurants I must say that more of the money stays in the local economy than in the case of imported electrical goods.
C’mon people, according to your critics you’re all supposed to be inner city snobs who can’t stand McMansion dwelling middle Australia. Play up to the stereotype, please!
The Hamiltonians decry expenditure on home entertainment systems, big cars and boats, but they themselves spend up big on food, wine, the arts and travel (to visit the great museums of Europe, not lie on a beach at Phuket). They don’t realise that this too is consumption, just of a different kind.
The only positive I can see in this is that there are dimensions of consumption that should and can be scrutinised, reflected upon and even acted upon, and that the ‘affluenza’ thesis may lead some people there. What are the effects of our electronics purchases and e-waste on the environment? Under what conditions are these items produced? There is an international division of labour at work here, and a lot of the effects of our choices are invisiable to us. That is to say, the old arguments about class and consumption are probably too simplistic in such a world as this.
But it seems like the affluenza concept is a bit silly, and doesn’t help to make people reflect on these things very much. Add to that the moralising dimension, and people are right to react against it. Most of the reflectiong I’ve done on the effects of my consumption has come from much humbler places: people I know and respect who have given some of these issues some thought and have made changes of their own, and have done so without leaving any impression of moral superiority.
Heh. Wilful @ 19, I just started renting in a *very* salubrious suburb (they’re on to me, I’m sure, I’ll be disappeared before much longer…) and it’s amusing how the Vaucluse set do renovating:
They build what I like to call ‘Concrete Castles’.
What you do is, you demolish the modest brick family home that once stood on a plot of land with a front yard and a back yard (‘modest’ in Vaucluse being a 4-5 bedroom mid-century home with a pool). You raze the entire site to the ground. Everything goes. The structure, the foundations, the grass. Everything. Then you excavate several metres into the hillside (to beat council height restrictions) and remove about 1000 cubic metres of sandstone bedrock.
Into the resulting cavernous hole, you pour concrete until you’ve got a five-level Concrete Castle structure that comprises an underground car-park, then a games/pool/garden deck at ground level, on top of that goes the kitchen, living and dining rooms, on top of that goes all the guest bedrooms, on top of that goes the master bedroom with uninterrupted harbour views. On top of that is the open-air BBQ roof deck.
Forget brick. Forget timber. Just pour out your Concrete Castle into the giant hole.
These Concrete Castles go right to the edge of the property on all sides, and there is not a scrap of natural land, garden or tree remaining. Whatever greenery exists is built on top of a concrete base at ground level, topiaried and landscapred to within an inch of its life. Or in pots.
Then you stick a bloody great water-feature in the front that runs down three or four levels of the structure, just so that passers-by get the point that you have f**k off money.
It’s great! And these are the people who think McMansions are terrible!
In my humble experience of providing whitegoods/furniture/anything as rental items for the last year shows, those most likely to rent are those who lack impulse control.
It would work out a lot cheaper for my customers to either save, or lay buyfor items, yet the desire to have the item nowoverrides this.
There are people who fit the affluenza myth, but they arent the tradies and cashed up bogans from my experence.
Instead they are the welfare recipients, I can show you houses with matresses on the floor and 2 big plasma screens. I can also show you people Ive knocked back for items because theyd leave themselves with less than $100 a weekif I signed them up. (this isnt purely out of the good of my heart, they would be bound to default). Basic money management is lacking, how someone can attend 10 or so years of schooling and be so bad at basic maths and budgeting is beyond me.
Radio rentals and my business SHOULDNT exist if my customers had recieved a basic education.
And unless people think this is slagging off the welfare recipients themselves, its not, its aimed at a school system that has massively failed thousands of people.
Mercurius,
Isn’t it great to look down one’s nose at other people’s choices? Clive Hamilton did. Sold books about it.
Back in the 1960s our Melbourne train took us through “Victoria Park” = Collingwood. The line was above rooftops. You could see sheets of corrugated iron held down by old bricks & lumps of (non-Vauclusian) concrete and other junk. There were TV aerials sprouting.
Someone said to me, “you’d think they’d fix up their houses before wasting money on TV sets!” I disagreed then and I disagree now.
Rising housing costs are a result of the enormous appreciation in residential real estate in Australia.
In the rest of the anglophone world, and many other places as well, the real estae bubble has well and truly burst.
There may be very sound reasons why Australian real estate prices have remained high when they have crumbled elsewhere in the world, but I can’t think what those reasons may be. Therefore, it is likely that Australian residential real estate is a bubble that hasn’t burst yet.
How does this relate to the current discussion?
Australian private indebtedness is the highest in the world. Much of that indebtedness is underwritten by borrowings against real estate. A certain percentage of that collateral has been valued at bubble-induced prices. If and when real estate values fall to more or less the same degree as they have fallen in Britain and in the United States, the McMansion lifestyle will be untenable for many.
McMansions are definitive markers of marginal electorates.
The political outfall from terminal affluenza could be cataclysmic. The temptation of any government to underwrite this lifestyle no matter what the cost could be irresistible.
Stand by for some epoch-making transfer payments to McMansionland.
Ambigulous – it doesn’t look much different now!
Australian private indebtedness is the highest in the world. Is it, is that true? I had no idea.
Isn’t there some basic economic explanation behind it. Elsewhere, particularly in the US there is an over-supply of housing, whereas in Australia there is still an under-supply? I also suspect the under-supply is being worsened by the lack of capital available to developers reducing the number of new homes being built.
I’m not sure I like the claim that there is no evidence we are greedier and more materialistic. Is there a psychometric scale they administered in a national poll?
The definition of “materialistic” is “buying more stuff and going to church less”, which we have pretty clear evidence Australians have been doing. As for not being greedier… Australia spent 10 years voting in a govt whose main carrot was lower taxes and whose main stick was fear of higher interest rates. i.e. we spent 10 years voting in a govt that promised we could get richer and we would have to share less. That’s the definition of greed. We did this too despite strong moral reasons to vote them out, and part of their popularity was their promise to prevent a piddling number of asylum seekers from being allowed to share our bounty.
Also, I don’t know that the affluenza thing is a distraction from the issue of affordable housing. Aussies got rich in the housing bubble, and by definition those who got wealthier did so at the expense of those who had less capital. That’s pretty greedy too.
So I’m dubious about those two claims, and I think the Aussie pursuit of wealth through hoarding housing needs to be seen as one of the root causes of the unaffordability of housing.
FDB, I too travelled that train route for decades. (Where did you live Ambi?)
I can assure you that the tract between Clifton Hill and North Richmond is unrecognisable compared with the 1960s.
Ambi’s description does justice to the shanty town of rusting galv iron of those long-gone days.
Mercurius @ 9
You can’t totally compensate by buying less, but it does make a difference. As pointed out in the linked post, many things which were once considered luxuries are now considered necessities. That includes house design too – see how many new home designs don’t include ensuite bathrooms even with the cheap volume builders.
Probably also would be worth looking at comparing household income versus house prices rather than just individual income. I’d guess there are more two income couples and more of those working fulltime.
Sort of agreed, sg, as someone ready but unable to afford a home of my own, but who also has parents sitting speculatively on an extra unit (that could’ve been mine or someone else’s of my generation) so they can add to their retirement income, I’ve had to ponder this one in moments of resentment and despair re my own housing situation. But don’t you think the fact that people are allowed and even encouraged (by things like big tax cuts for negative gearers, the ability to borrow against house prices when house prices are only ever speculations until they’re sold and the money handed over, by tightly controlled and poorly planned land releases that keep house prices rising and thus of interest to speculators, etc etc), in combination with our pension payments being one of the lowest around (I sure wouldn’t want to have to live on the pittance my Grandad’s scraping by on, for example), is the cause of hoarding housing, too?
I’d be very surprised if there were markedly fewer residences per head of population in Australia than in the US or especially the UK.
Australia has a high level of single-person occupancy of residences. This phenomenon has grown dramatically since the 1970s.
Negative gearing hasn’t only increased rental ownership. Inevitably, it has stimulated the growth in the supply of housing stock.
Nothing like the data to demonstrate the fallaciousness of a good story.
The consumption share (nominal household final consumption expenditure as a share of nominal GDP) is currently close to its lowest level since quarterly national accounts data have been compiled and has been falling consistently for a number of years now (there is of course a cyclical component to the current low level). The consumption share was considerably higher during most of the 1960s than it is now.
Now, of course there is more “stuff”. We have much higher nominal incomes than we used to, produce considerably more, and are much wealthier than we were in the past. Most consumption items are normal goods, so we consume more in total.
Beyond that, there are considerable changes in the pattern of consumption. Largely due to changes in relative prices. The relative price of many durable consumer goods (whitegoods, electronics, cars) has fallen significantly over time, so that encourages consumption of higher volumes of those goods as well.
Hamilton wrote his original affluenza pieces at a time when the consumption share was considerably higher, and the household saving rate had correspondingly been declining for some time (and was then negative). Since then, things have changed somewhat.
I can’t help thinking though that much of his critique was based on his devaluing the types of goods and services that many Australians enjoy consuming.
Paul burns @ 13
You’ve lived long enough to know full well that washing machines are much cheaper than in the past. 25 years ago we bought a *second hand* one for a unit we own ( don’t bullshit about rents either – i’ve owned the same unit for 30 years ) and it cost nearly $200. We replaced it with a beaut machine for $500 about 4 years ago. It’s still going fine.
I know you’d dearly prefer the old stuff that used to get made in the Soviet Union but thankfully, for the rest of us, that’s long gone. Maybe you could pick up a cheap washer from Venezuela?
A $600 washer is cheap. Try $3000 for Miele washer/drier. We did, and couldn’t be happier with it.
Peter @ 35, largely = argumentum ad personam
The sad thing is that a lot of the extra income coming from increased participation in the workplace of women has been the increase in the price of houses. As a consequence many women have to work to help pay of the increased mortage payments reuired because women working have driven up the price of houses…..
joe2 — a generous fraction of this thread is anecdotal.
Russell @14, patrickg @15 and Mr Denmore @16, bang on the money. Now stop taking the words out of my mouth.
I think what Hamilton and other researchers of his ilk have overlooked is that humans have always been infected with affluenza. Look back through history and find me anyone with the means (apart from a from notable exceptions like Buddha and early Christian hermits) who didn’t have a McMansion crowded with the latest in consumer goods.
I think the reason it seems to be a modern affliction is because modern technology allows for a much higher production of consumer goods and modern communication allows the producers of said goods to reach an exponentially larger target market.
Russell @14, patrickg @15 and Mr Denmore @16, bang on the money. Now stop taking the words out of my mouth.
I think what Hamilton and other researchers of his ilk have overlooked is that humans have always been infected with affluenza. Look back through history and find me anyone with the means (apart from a from notable exceptions like Buddha and early Christian hermits) who didn’t have a McMansion crowded with the latest in consumer goods.
I think the reason it seems to be a modern affliction is because modern technology allows for a much higher production of consumer goods and modern communication allows the producers of said goods to reach an exponentially larger target market.
“I can’t help thinking though that much of his critique was based on his devaluing the types of goods and services that many Australians enjoy consuming.”
Yes, and why not – everything isn’t the same. Playing the pokies isn’t the same as visiting museums. One good example of affluenza is how kids have been turned into consumers. I don’t think I ever thought of buying anything before I was about 12 years old – there probably wasn’t any ‘brands’ for kids anyway. Now, what 10 year-old doesn’t know and desire certain brands of shoes or t-shirts or computer games – they know and they want.
Huh! Sorry about the stutter, keyboard and mouse are waging war on me. I’ll just chuck them out and get some new ones; plenty more where they come from.
I was also going to observe that more than any other time in history, producers of consumers goods and gadgets like iphones etc, have to keep upping the ante to maintain market share.
joe2 @ 36
Not at all.
Not so:
I reckon the washing machine in the picture ( the one at the top ) would suit Paul just fine!
Re: Rents
~1978 $45pw house $45,000 <- 1 br attached
2009 $190pw house ~$500,000
House has gone up 10 times, rent only 4.
Another (two bedroom) we own:
1992 160pw price 130,000 <- had to drop rent to $130 for 2 years after purchase
2009 320pw price ~350,000
Both in better condition than when purchased.
Katz @ 25 – “There may be very sound reasons why Australian real estate prices have remained high when they have crumbled elsewhere in the world, but I can’t think what those reasons may be.”
There is an under-suply of housing in Australia, particularly in the Victorian and West Australian markets. There is a significant oversupply in the US, as an example. Australia has a migrant intake of +100,000 annually plus natural population growth and as you noted lowering peron per dwelling numbers. Local planning laws etc are a significant break on development causing significant undersupply hence causing increase in scarcity and value.
Australia has not had the scourge of the Sub-prime sector where 100% loan valuation ratios meant negative equity in falling markets. Both defaults and walk-aways compounded on oversupplied markets in the US and elsewhere.
Australia has relatively low unemployment rate, which although rising is coming off historical lows. Our flexible labour market is allowing full-time to part-time and casual rates, reducing outright redundancies enabling families to keep paying mortgages.
Australia also has an internationally low default rate on home loans. The cultural reasons for this are many, but one of the strongest is the bankruptcy laws.
Australian Official interest rates have fallen significantly and this has actually been passed on to borrowers, unlike the case in many overseas economies where interst cuts have been smaller and little passed on.
I am sure there are more reasons but those are the big hitters that I can think of at the moment.
Razor, yes some of those causes may be important reasons for house prices remaining high. I think that the institutional arrangements, particularly financing practices and bankruptcy laws, are important.
By the same token, Australian home purchasers have committed a very high proportion of their disposable income to mortgage repayments. Their margin of comfort is thin.
You are correct about the relief enjoyed by home-buyers as a result of interest rate reductions. I wonder how long this relief will last in the light of rising yields on government bonds provoked at least in part by the huge appetite of governments for borrowed funds for stimulus packages and the like.
And the effects rising unemployment cannot be completely compensated by part time and casual work. Australians’ indebtedness was based on a higher level of disposable income. Again, the safety margins are quite narrow.
A rising level of default would appear to be unavoidable.
Jane’s comment @39 inadvertently highlights the mess we’re in. How gut-wrenching that someone could so unselfconsciously depict such utter fecklessness, idiotic greed and contempt for future generations and our world.
Phil @46, my comment @39 was an attempt at irony. Obviously, I fell flat on my face on that count.
The most explosive implication of Hairshirt Hamilton’s epistle is that it puts him in conflict with the “we’ll all be rooned” lefties, like Professor Quiggin, who keep trying to convince us the so-called GFC is Armageddon.
Some Armageddon, if we’re all wooping it up at Harvey Norman, Coles, David Jones, and The Rockpool!
BTB @ 48, the GFC really is Armaggedon in a lot of countries. Iceland has lost 10 years of growth. Ireland is in huge trouble as are a lot of countries. We have gotten off scot-free, so far.
“The major reason we buy more stuff is because stuff has become cheaper. The increase in working hours is not being driven by an increasing desire for stuff but by increases in the cost of things like housing and services.
That’s disgingenuous. It forgets that a significant part of the rise in cost of housing is wanting bigger houses. In 1955 the average newly-built house was 115 sq m with 3.5 people, in 2005 it was 230 sq m with 2.6 people. We have twice as much house space per person – of course housing is more expensive. And isn’t part of affluence having a bigger place? Does Bill Gates live in a one-room bedsit?
The original article also presents a nice graph of the cost of refrigerators, washers and so on from 1950 to today. This is why I always say we should beware graphs; they tell the truth, but not the whole truth. Yes, dryers are cheaper than in 1955 – but almost no-one had them then, and almost everyone has them now. And TVs I’ve no doubt are cheaper, but while there might have been one tv for every two households in 1965, there was one in every household in 1975, and two or three today, plus computers, and so on.
You can’t just look at the prices of individual appliances, you have to consider how many different appliances people have in their homes. Overall, we have a lot more stuff in our homes than in 1950. Whether we got bigger houses to fit the crap in, or bought more crap to fill the empty houses, I don’t know.
“an object lesson in how ideological positions collapse when confronted with careful empirical work”
Indeed. Except it ain’t Hamilton’s that’s fallen over, sorry.
Anyway, the real point of the book is not so much that we were accumulating stuff, but that we were accumulating stuff and it wasn’t making us happy. We are feverishly doing something that makes us sick.
Maybe Affluenza is destined to the The Limits to Growth of its day: much criticised but rarely read.
mercurious! woooo! go go go!
I appreciate the publicity Hamilton brings to progressive political projects, but his moralising discourse is the bourgeois vanguard of class warfare. I’m with Mercurious on this one, with a few qualifications.
The marxist (me) wouldn’t be worried about comparing the relative economic worth of various forms of entertainment purely as a consumptive practice (tv versus spectacular sporting contests/film festivals, for example), but figuring out how to incite a given population to use their productive capacities in creative and life affirming ways. Therefopre, ‘comfort’ doesn’t really come into the equation, and if so only in a negative sense as a distraction from reclaiming one’s creative drive.
There is more but I am horrendously fluey.
But, Peter, where can I rent a house for 190pw? seriously. Clearly not in the same suburb as I rent my studio w/ parking spot for $270.
My old mother, who grew up during the depression, commented that:
She grew up in a family of six with ther father working as a signalman and then was widowed in the fifties with two children to raise. In her time and my youth there was far more emphasis on the desirability of being able to endure discomfort and “toughening up” even if money was not the issue. Guess it helped us know what we wanted. The downside is that many people who came through this discomfort were determined that their children would not miss out on the things money could buy.
In the meantime, I am trying to convince my wife that she would be even happier if she gave up all the junk that I don’t think she needs. Then there would be room in the house for the important things that would make life happier – Somehow she fails to understand that what I am suggesting would be a win/win.
glen @ 51
It’s a one bedroom flat attached to our house. You definitely couldn’t rent a house for $190 now just as you couldn’t rent one for $45 in 1978 ( I think we paid $65 for a two bedroom flat just before we bought ).
I heard someone say today that our population growth last year was 1.6%, I think. And a considerable housing shortfall.
I could start raving on about life in the 40s and 50s. About how we got our first car when I was 9, a ’26 Dodge ute. How my mum bought a parachute after the war and made us pyjamas and shirts from it.
I bought a VW in the early 60s and it cost about a year’s salary.
brian, that is awesome
Hi Katz,
Lived in Ivanhoe in 1950s, then Heidelberg in 1960s. (I got the impression from a bushfire thread you may have been out Eltham, or Hurstbridge…?). Nostalgic for the Hurstbridge (railway) line. Red rattler trains with tiny compartments, etc. Old B&W photos of Victorian tourist destinations (accessible by train, natch) on the wall of each compartment.
We were poor, but we were happy.
Train, tram, bus travel was the norm. A friend reminisced that in Ivanhoe in the late 1950s there were TWO cars owned in his 1 mile long suburban road (many scores of families). Only 2. He remembered clearly because his parents owned 50% of the cars in his street.
Mt Buffalo Chalet was OWNED by Victorian Railways. (No modern-type VicRail back in those days.) Hols for the Prols.
Yes, Eltham. The dangerous stops were Macleod, Watsonia, Greensborough, whose characteristic young denizens were sharpies with a bad attitude. These fellows never appeared to learn that hippies could mete out as good a kicking as anyone.
Now that this is a private conversation: swimming in muddy summer river water at Eltham was the first time we saw a snake swimming. Broadened our perspective on Joe Blakes. Viva nostalgia!
In the VFL zoning, Ivanhoe was in the Collingwood zone, so my primary school classmates were predominantly Magpie supporters. The Collingwood/Melbourne rivals dominated the Grand Finals. I was informed by a wise sceptic in Grade 4 that “Collingwood plays dirty”. It’s important to acquire such insights as early as possible. We were poor but we were happy.
The Affluenza motif is a vehicle of social snobbery and accompanies inadequate social comment; I’m with Mark on that.
Silk pyjamas … luxury!
America was a seriously much wealthier place in the 60s. A (now retired) ex-pat British academic was recounting that in his first year working in the US in the 60s he bought a brand new car and a house, both for cash, and still had more than enough to comfortably live on. Wow.
Growing up in NZ in the 70s was like some weird socialist utopia. Bit like Cuba but colder and with alot less rhythm. Milk was 10c a pint and we had free (compulsory) on-site dental care at the Primary school.
I tend to side with Kiashu @ 50 on this. Whilst I agree with the underlying argument that there are bigger issues to address such as housing affordability and tax reform, much of the problem with housing affordability is that low income earners expect these McMansion’s as their first home. So as the bottom end of the market strives for more, is it unsurprising that the entire market gets lifted?
I suppose the question for me is whether this “demand” is being driven by fashion (a la Affluenza style) or is it supply side driven (i.e. easier (viz more cost effective because they don’t have to retool, etc) for builders to rehash these crappy designs then build something suited to the local market? For example, up here in tropical North Queensland, we’re building the same crappy McMansion’s as you’re getting in the southern states. So, in a location where traditionally we’d have cooling verandas, etc, we have block houses with no eaves and a black colorbond roof!!! Little surprise then that they need a 1 Billion BTU’s of AirCon to make them liveable.
So, what’s driving this insanity? Is it the southern influx demanding what they’re familiar with or is it simply builders rehashing a proven formula because they know it’ll make them more money?
Oh, and I haven’t seen anyone trying to argue for or against the other claim made by Hamilton RE:
which I think was the point made by Kiashu.
As for evidence of affluenza? Well, all I can speak from is our own experience where, for years, we battled immense pressure to avoid the clutches of the likes of Storm Financial who assured us a wonderful life and easy money. We watched enviously as associates made immense “paper gains”; yet something didn’t add up (and with some glib satisfaction as most of these are now effectively broke). Similarly, we debated how much of our inflated equity we should risk on other ventures. Thankfully, we managed to keep ourselves at a realistic level (i.e. tried to ignore the boom component). However, you need to understand the pressure brought upon us from all angles. From colleagues. From banks. From family. From ourselves. It was incredibly difficult to fight off the “look, you too can be rolling in gold dust” mentality.
So, whilst some of this can be attributed to “cheaper things”, many were simply driven by greed. The hype from Storm never cut it with me – their catch cry seemed to be “we can all be millionaires” and anything that espouses that money literally does grow on trees immediately turns on my BS meter. Yet thousands believed it. Why else would retirees risk their entire life savings on a high capital growth (i.e. high risk) investment strategy? It’s not as if they weren’t comfortable – some of them were risking millions of their own capital (existing housing equity + superannuation). So it really annoys me that they want us (and the banks) to bale them out of their own stupidity!
GoTroppo
two anecdotes
1) young accountant couple patiently explaining to us in midst of tech stock surge a few years ago that the companies had low earnings and no apparent business plans, therefore they would not invest; the tech wreck crash followed
2) a colleague needed to borrow about $80,000 to buy a $350,000 house in early 2008. Local bank person pressed on him the desirability of borrowing $200,000 or more. Customer had to stand firm and say “No, we only need $80,000 and that’s what we’ll borrow, thanks!” I was struck by the contrast with the early 1970s when getting a mortgage was hedged around by restrictions including: repayments must not exceed 25% of proven, regular disposable family income.
Ambigulous @ 61 – yes we’re expected to be able to make conservative decisions ourselves rather than rely on other people stopping us from what some may consider risky behavior. And there are still lots of sensible people around.
On the upside these days, you generally don’t need to dress up and beg for money at the local bank branch, if you’re married both people’s income can be considered when borrowing, and you don’t need to sign anything promising you’ll inform the bank first if you plan to have children (a friend was given a contract which had this in it!). Just need to remember that the banks and mortgage brokers aren’t your friends and don’t have your best interest in mind.
This came up during the Productivity Commission inquiry into housing prices. As recall seeing at least one submission convincingly arguing — with hard data — that the cost of construction is generally rising in line with inflation. The rising cost of homes is almost entirely dominated by the cost of land, which comes back to planning, zoning and land releease.
I agree that Hamilton’s hideous moralising tone pretty much destroys any credibility on the topic, in the main because it does seem to be underlined by some sort of classist set of assumptions.
I think it’s a shame because it really is impossible I think to refute the evidence that consumption levels in western nations such as Australia are a problem. By evidence, I mean at the fundamental level, eg that the USA has about 5% of the world’s population but consumes nearly 30% of the world’s resources (this ratio fluctuates a little up and down and I freely admit to not googling it today, but you get the idea). We can dicker about whether it’s people buying more flatscreens or washing machines of upgrading their car more frequently, or whatever, but the overall pattern is hard to refute.
Jared Diamond showed in ‘Collapse’ and has been backed by other work that if China reaches the same level of consumption-based affluence as the USA, we’ll need the whole world’s resources just to let them have that. I think that’s a problem worth talking about, including our part in it, and brings into focus the nexus between our economy, social expectations, human rights and environmental sustainability. What a surprise, they’re all connected.
There is plenty of evidence that owning stuff beyond securing a comfortable standard of living doesn’t actually make us happier, and we have an entire industry (advertising) based on making you dissatisfied with the stuff you have and therefore want to go and buy more stuff. Our whole capitalist society is based on increasing consumption, and to do that you have to convince the vast majority of people in affluent countries like ours that they need to buy more, and to do that you have to convince them that they are unhappy without item X.
It is also clear that as developing nations contain more people reaching middle class affluence or more, their model for an appropriate lifestyle is largely us, with some cultural variations on the theme. (Yes it’s anecdotal but) I remember vividly going back to India in the late 80s /early 90s after a few years’ absence, and seeing the incredible impact plastic bags were having. Previously unknown, plastic bags had been introduced by more ‘hip’ shops as a status symbol that the customer was purchasing elite goods from nearly always, a more western-style store. There was absolutely no waste disposal system in India at the time, so where most disposables had been biodegradeable (eg clay disposable takeaway tea & coffee cups, bags from jute or woven banana leaves or calico), now plastic was everywhere, and cows in the street were regularly dying from eating too many, and a whole industry involving plastic bag ‘rag pickers’ sprang up in the slums. All this from watching and learning from our culture, in large part.
Research of the dying has shown, not one person says ‘oh I wish I’d worked harder and bought more stuff’ (or equivalent), what they do say is they wish they had spent more time with loved ones, in nature, appreciating life and world, and not spending so much time being preoccupied on trivial things, like stuff (again paraphrasing loosely to a gist). I wonder why more of us don’t take this on board.
We also know from various social and health research that consuming goods doesn’t make us healthier and happier, it makes us fatter, unhealthier etc etc. Anyone else speculate on the link between dissatisfaction-driven consumptive capitalism and the epidemic (basically) of depression in western nations?
Purusing consumption is also largely an individualistic exercise, and I think is tied or at least correlates to the rise of individualism that has often been seen as a threat to community building in countries like Australia, although I think there the death of communitarism was probably prematurely declared. I do think that the indvidual pursuit of ‘profit maximisation’-style behaviour is a threat though to the kind of community most Australians say they want.
This is rambling, sorry, and no I’m not throwing about lots of learned references. My central point is that I think it’s a very big mistake to dismiss any conversation about our levels of consumption, tied to what kind of society and world we want to live in and leave our children, just because someone like Hamilton presented a flawed perspective.
In my last comment, “As recall” should be “I recall”. Grammoplasty gone horribly wrong.
But you have essentially made almost exactly the argument Hamilton made, which is refuted by the same empirical evidence. It’s not about perspectives; Hamilton and others like him advance specific hypotheses which are refutable and refuted.
Mind you, as my previous comment shows, I am guilty of the “I recall” method of citing sources, but at least I gave you a source to look up.
Well said, myriad. I think that the point you make in your second paragraph is irrefutable, but most don’t want to talk about that and the reality of what we are doing to the planet. Much easier to have a go at a soft target like Hamilon and ignore the wider implications of our unbridled consumption levels.
I’m sorry Jacques, but where has the level of consumption by western nations as proportion of total available global resources been refuted; or that consumption-based capitalism as a means to prosperity and global equality is flawed as we only have so much finite resource and not enough of them to extend that lifestyle to the other 5 billion on this planet (and rising)?
The Utilitarian project lurches forth!
Mercurius nailed it: “notions of the ‘nobility of suffering’ drive much of the zeal for some participants in the deep Green movement.” It’s no coincidence that Hamilton is also the author of Scorcher and currently off at Yale’s Environment School. Visions of nature and culture tend to be ‘co-produced’. In fact, you could say that environmentalism is like one great spiritual quest only graphs and ‘hard data’ displace (or don’t) the totems of past societies.
But why stop there? The zeal with which ‘Economic Development’ is pursued could only described as a quasi-religious one. When push comes to shove, Economists all too often resort to the kind of table thumping rhetoric about ‘the fundamentals’ of economics using similar assumptions about life, scarcity, industry and nature as Hamilton.
Adrian, the reason that “most don’t want to talk about that and the reality of what we are doing to the planet” is because, when you analyse the point Myriad was making, for all the sincerity and force of Myriad’s argument — it’s a truism.
Myriad was saying, in essence, “hey! guess what! We can’t consume more resources than the earth has!”. It’s a truism. It’s not useful or interesting. And obviously it will never happen – we can’t consume more resources than the earth has, so we won’t. Ever. It’s impossible in logic and in reality.
I don’t wish to denigrate the sincerity or the conviction of those who are genuinely concerned about this issue — but I’m afraid such views are the direct intellectual descendents of Thomas Malthus. On paper, you can draw an apocalypse arising in a straight-line extrapolation from current trends. But it’s not going to happen that way, because those straight-line extrapolations don’t happen in the real world. What is going to happen, I can’t say, but it won’t be as Jared Diamond, Thomas Malthus, Clive Hamilton, Myriad or Adrian predict.
And obviously it will never happen – we can’t consume more resources than the earth has, so we won’t. Ever. It’s impossible in logic and in reality.
I’m sorry, but that’s hilarious – how on earth do you reach the conclusion that this is impossible in logic or reality, not least as there are (and not just by Diamond) many documented cases of human societies and civilisations being destroyed by completely exhausting the resources that supported them. All I’m talking about is extending that behaviour to a globally connected world, which we are, no?
No merrcurius, it’s a bit more sophisticated than that. We can consume more resources than the earth can renewably supply, but only at severe risk of permanently depleting the capital stocks. And everyone on earth can’t all have the lifestyle we currently enjoy.
Diamond provided multiple examples of where the malthusian horror story has come true. It’s quite possible that it can happen on a planetary scale, it’s already permanently happened on bioregional scales.
So what if it’s a truism. Seems that many people need reminding of something that should be self evident.
Your conclusion that you don’t know what’s going to happen, but it’s not going to be an ‘apocalypse’ would be amusing if it wasn’t so trite.
At this rate, we’ll see more border tax adjustments and other punitive political-economic ‘security measures’. These will be combined with harsher ‘adaptive’ measures to mitigate against ‘Climate Wars’-esque scenarios per Gwynne Dyer playing out. The extent to which these unwind contemporary ‘Globalization’/Neoliberal Capitalism remains to be seen.
“hey! guess what! We can’t consume more resources than the earth has!”.
Sorry, I should have picked this up initially, but frankly was too busy being gobsmacked – so to qualify, it was shocked hilarity.
Anyway Mercurius, the problem is in the quote above – my argument (and many others) is not that we can’t consume more than the planet produces – yes that can be seen as a truism, but that we unequivocally are; and we all need to get over the cliche you so blithely dismiss, and engage with the reality, because it’s happening.
Which is why to me it’s not about what we consume (eg food & washing machines get cheaper, as does entertainment IT so we switch consumption patterns), it’s the gross levels of consumption, tied to what is seen as ‘comfortable lifestyle norms’ that is the problem – which for eg is why average Australian house sizes have increased by anywhere between 11 -25% depending on who you read, while our number of children and number of single person households has increased.
Folks, I’m well aware that, for example, the ancient societies of the Mediterranean and Middle-East essentially denuded most of modern-day Greece, Turkey, the Levant etc. of trees because that’s how they built their boats and heated their homes. Their activities permanently changed the biosphere of the Mediterannean in ways that are still apparent today.
But guess what? We don’t build our boats or heat our homes that way any more. They still do in sub-Saharan Africa, and their population is indicative of the situation we’d be in globally if everybody did that. But we don’t.
We found better ways that support more people. If Diamond or Malthus had lived around 50Bc, they’d probably say the upper sustainable limit of human population globally was around 100 million. And they’d be right – because that was about the limit using the methods of resource production and consumption humans did at the time.
But their predictive models are flawed because they assume a fixed phase-space of resource production and consumption that is plainly at odds with reality. The phrase that wilful used to describe this — “the capital stocks” of the earth — is telling in its implicit assumption of a fixed resource supply. Obviously it is fixed in the sense of being a finite sum-total of mass-energy available for use, but it’s not nearly so fixed in terms of the ever-increasing means and efficiences in the way they are used.
Even in my (short) lifetime, humans have made major, major, improvements in sustainable development and consumption of resources. We’re always increasing the total size of the Malthusian space available. And so then our population growth catches up to be, with impeccable Darwinian logic, just, just inside the livable boundary of Malthusian space.
At the global scale, we have a pretty good track record of getting out of the messes we get ourselves into. That’s what I mean when I say I can’t predict what will happen, but I’m confident apocalypse ain’t it. Sea level rise, yes. Temperature rise, yes. LArge-scale displacement of populations and increased incidence of natural disaster, yes. Major, major ecological challenges to overcome this century and hopefully act to prevent, yes.
But consuming more resources than the earth actually has? Impossible, even in principle. The very idea is ontological nonsense. And you might just like to reflect for a moment on exactly why it is that China and India have a such a frosty response to the notion of wealthy westerners telling them they can’t have the lifestyle in which we’ve revelled for generations — “because, because, just think of the earth the earth can’t sustain it” — and especially in the context of Don Arthur’s points with which Mark originally opened this thread.
Shorter Mercurius: We don’t need to change our behaviour because of global warming because scientific breakthroughs will solve the problem for us. Glad we cleared that up.
Not at all, Adrian. You could characterise my views on various local and regional scales as pessimistic. But on the global scale, I’m an incurable optimist. We found a better way to build boats and heat homes than cutting down all the trees of the Mediterranean coast (perhaps the lack of trees had something to do with it…)
So I’m confident — but not complacent. Much work has to be done, and I believe it is being done, and will be done. The work of activists, environmentalists and scientists has made more and more progress possible. In fact, you can take all the shrieks and howls of the denialists as a sign of just how much progress has been made. We’re disrupting their cosy little status quo, and they don’t like it, and they’re blowing as much smoke as they can.
But our behaviour is categorically different from that of the ancient Greek boat-builders who cut down the last tree and then had nothing else up their sleeve. We can see the problem, we can see how many trees are left, and we’re addressing it. That’s why I’m confident.
Mercurius I too have a great deal of optimism – laced with healthy doses of terror and depression for my nieces etc. – that we’re capable of being vasty more efficient, effective etc etc with the resource available, and within that providing a decent standard of living to everyone on this planet if we so choose.
However as we in the west continually place purchasing optional consumer goods over helping those in extreme poverty, for a whole variety of reasons, I don’t think its reasonable or evidence-based to ignore the fact that culture and societal organisation played a significant part in the ‘choice’ that previous socieites have made to exceed sustainable limits & thus collapse.
My point being, we might have all the technology, but we’ve blatantly lacked the will for quite sometime, and the west can be rightly accused of living by a lifeboat philosophy, not one of human equity and sustainability for all.
I’d argue one of the reasons our ‘track record’ may have gotten better at digging out of messes is because naive people like me (apparently) patiently remind people that truism become truisms because they are true, and need to be dealt with accordingly, not scoffed at.
I and many others would also point out that the rate of ecological collapse at this point is so pressing and global that even without climate change we’re in deep shit unless we change our ways. Changing our ways, from my pov at least, does not mean all the tired crap about back to caves etc., it means harnessing both technology along with what we know makes us happy (not excess consumption) to create a more equitable world. Sure, strum along with kumbaya if you want, but I don’t have time and nor do you for me to write that in more empirical detail and I suspect you get the gist.
You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that all civilisation collapses are past distant. Firstly, I’d point out that Easter Island and the modern tale of New Zealand Maoris and the role self-induced resource scarcity played in their relationship with the colonisers are not distant memories; and I’ve yet to see a strong refutation of Diamond’s thesis that resource scarcity was a very significant contributing factor to the Rwandan genocide.
Secondly I’d point out that with regard to the devestation wrought on once fertile areas such as the Mediterranean and the Middle Eastern grain belt – the cradle of civilisation to many – that the effects of those decisions thousands of years ago still render those areas markedly less productive and more fragile than they were. In other words, the past is still with us and we are adding to it. At this rate our footwork is going to have to get very fancy indeed to get out.
Finally, I’d like to reject your conflation in your last paragraph with my views on this topic to meaning that I don’t think the developing nations have a right to develop. I very much do. I know it’s not uncommon to find Greens who argue so strongly for reducing consumption that they don’t seem to grasp that this means dooming millions of the world’s poor and is grossly inequitable. I am not one of them. I spent much of my childhood in India, and now work with refugees after many years in environmental policy / science. I don’t trade of one against the other.
It would be why the real problem and objection I have to Hamilton is his framing of the consumption debate in terms of a disease, a negative, and to accuse many individuals of greed. It’s unhelpful and ignores a fundamental truth that people operate within a context, and the vast, vast majority of us on this planet are simply trying to do the best we can with the resources available to us -that might mean choosing to buy food or medicine for a sick child because you can’t have both; or it might mean taking the kids to the movies and blowing $100 because the family has been under stress and needs a break.
None of that changes a need to look at what, how and why we consume what we do, including the economic and societal assumptions its based on – and that has to start from acknolwedging the truism you so hate.
But consuming more resources than the earth actually has? Impossible, even in principle. The very idea is ontological nonsense.
evidence please.
But we also have much more powerful negative forces at our disposal than those Greek boat builders did.
And there’s a strong incentive to believe in a scientific utopia as a solution to GW if it obviates us from the necessity to change our behaviours.
While I have nothing to contribute of substance at this point, it being time to put the monkfish on to confit right about now, I would like to call attention to my awesome moniker I just thought of.
A special prize for the first to put it to actual comedic use.
just hoping to catch the biggest dose ever of affluenza when my ozlotto numbers come up tonight…
Galbraith -”The Affluent Society” first published 1958:
Perhaps we old codgers should stop rabbiting on as though our life in the 1950′s was afluenza free. Perhaps too we need to recognize that the nature of our economy forces us to tread a fine line between growing the economy fast enough to control unemployment but not so fast that inflation becomes the issue.
Perhaps we need a conversation about what would have to change to give us a more robust economy that doesn’t depend on endless growth and the selling of artificial needs to control unemployment? An economy that would allow individuals more flexibilty to match the amount of time spent working with their real needs?
How many of us would work less, earn less and spend less if we could do this without sacrificing job security and job satisfaction?
A dour old Malthusiastic
Declared the supply side inelastic
Then some Neo-libs
Accused him of telling fibs
And of being a freedom-hating, moonbat, latte-sipping, wet, elitist spastic.
great.
now I’ve got coffee all over my keyboard
*applause for Katz*
Adrian:
Seriously, Adrian, I’d like to know what you think will solve GW if not science? A wishin’ and a hopin’? Writing on blogs?
It’s humans engaged in science who’ve enabled us to even perceive the problem. What else can solve it?
As for the need to change our behaviours, again, that gets back very close to the original point of Don Arthur’s article, and Mark’s reason for citing it here…What kind of behavioural changes are you talking about? People need somewhere to live, something to do, access to health and leisure. Who decides what’s appropriate? Clive Hamilton?
Remember relative poverty is as degrading to human dignity as is absolute poverty. Against the urgent backdrop of planetary survival, (surely the strongest of ethical claims), you must also balance the ethical claims of free human beings who need somewhere to live and something to do, and also the ethics of authority and coercion. An ethic that places “the planet” above human needs, arguing from a position of guilt and authority (as Hamilton does) is not going to get very far. An ethic that can encompass environmental concerns as complementary and additive to human needs and dignity, will be on surer ground.
I think on a macro-scale our behaviour is already very different from that of earlier societies: we have identified a looming problem and instead of sacrificing goats or children to appease the gods, we’re applying foresight, rationality and scientific endeavour in an attempt to head it off.
Industrially, we’ve stopped much of the egregious polluting behavior of factories that dogged much of the mid-20th century. Whole regions of land and water have been rehabilitated from previous ‘biologically dead’ ‘states. Large cities have much cleaner air and water than a generation ago. Fish have returned to Manhattan’s east river (actually, there’s far more wildlife around Manhattan than you find in suburban Sydney, but that’s another story.)
In households, the last few decades have seen enormous behavioural changes in many developed cities in terms of recycling, reduced packaging, public transport use, rainwater collection and grey water use. Cities that never had them are getting mass transit systems — even Bangkok and LA. Meanwhile, the struggle of people in the developing world to achieve a standard of living that is higher than miserable, grinding poverty continues, and is deserving of ethical consideration among your calls for us all to “change our behaviour”.
If you’re proposing to micro-manage the behaviour of people, how far do you wish to take it? And to what end? Isn’t it better that we address the remaining bulk of the problem at the point where the bulk of it occurs – in the source of our industrial methods of agriculture, production and energy ‘generation’? Please, please consider once more the original point Don Arthur made — that it’s fundamentally self-indulgent, and ethically unconscionable, for wealthy educated people to lecture the rest of the world about the need to “change their behaviour” to save the planet.
The stock market had a pretty good track record of going up and up and up; then the GFC happened. Do we really need to have an environmental/ecological catastrophe the scale of the GFC (~30-40% population loss) before we rethink the population strategy of “growth, growth, growth and hope for the best”?
Katzi,
I’m not sure that “spastic” is in current use in comedy or insult, either in polite or impolite company.
It was said that Rev Thomas Malthus, when dining in company, took a very dim view of any pregnant young ladies present [being as how he was the author of a conclusive argument - and tract - condemning their wickedness as authors of general famine and ruination]. His argument had influence, but proved overly simple.
His attitude mirrors the Hamiltonian. I dine well, but I purse my lips at the foolishness of others. How smug. How asinine.
Mercuruis, of course scientific advancement will play a role if we are to avoid disaster, but to think it can be the SOLE solution is living in fantasy land.
That is quite simply one of the most brilliant little things ever written!
Please, please consider once more the original point Don Arthur made — that it’s fundamentally self-indulgent, and ethically unconscionable, for wealthy educated people to lecture the rest of the world about the need to “change their behaviour” to save the planet.
Mercurius, forgive me, but if I was to respond in kind as you did to my truism, it would be to roll my eyes at Don Arthur and ask him where he’s been for the last decade or so, because aside from the usual smattering of iconoclasts like Hamilton, the environmental movement grapsed this point long ago, environmental justice – ie the marrying of human rights and environmental concerns – is a thriving field particularly in terms of the politics of development, and there’s exactly nothing new here. It’s in large part an argument with the ghost of movements past, but then we’re on a thread where people still think bringing up that Malthus got it wrong is some sort of telling blow.
You and other experienced LP-ers might be extremely au-fait if not leaders in the social sciences & economics, but when it comes to understanding the movements and recent research around the ‘soft’ sciences of ecology, biogeography and all those that basically deal with the systemic interaction between humans and nature (which includes as part of nature), we seem to end up having ridiculously simplistic and out-dated discussions about ‘science’ and false dichotomies that say more about the entrenchment of cartesian dualism in western thought processes than what’s actually understood within the relevant fields.
I’d challenge you that you, and others, are making just as many gross assumptions about those who cast an ear to the tenet if not the detail of Hamilton’s arguments, in assuming it necessitates dictating to the developing world from a position of moral superiority.
Fair point Myriad. Here’s a post I nearly crossed. Let me know what you think:
Since Adrian hasn’t been game to put up any ‘behaviour changing’ proposals of your own, I have one for you that will cut your carbon footprint by 50% overnight: move to Manhattan.
Seriously, by some estimates New York City residents have a carbon footprint that’s about 25% of the average American, which is to say about half that of the average Australian. Only 25% of Manhattan households have cars. The dwellings are tiny, so people have far less “stuff” by default. The city is fed by the virtually inexhaustible fresh water rainfall of the Catskill mountains, and is so well-filtered by the aquifer bedrock it needs virtually no treatment to be potable. The tap water is so good, and there’s almost none of the ridiculous trade in bottled water that goes on here. People get everything they need within a few short blocks of where they live, or folks deliver it to them on bicycles.
So, New Yorkers live in relative opulence, in a great world city, with year-round heating and cooling in most homes, with pizza delivery at any hour, unlimited high-speed broadband via cable to the home, easy access to some of the world’s best museums, theaters and sporting grounds, and every manner of entertainment and leisure known to the modern world — all for half the carbon footprint of anywhere else.
Australians could all meet our 2020 carbon targets if we just built a New York City somewhere on our east coast and moved there. But somehow I think that lifestyle is insufficiently dour and far, far too comfortable, to be acceptable to the Affluenza brigade. Certainly it’s too good to allow the Chinese or Indians to have it. And perhaps not everybody wants to live in New York City. But hey, Adrian, there’s a planet to save, so quit complaining and get over there!
I think moving to Portland or San Francisco might be a better idea though I’d love to live in New York.
There are hundreds of things that we could do Mercurius, that wouldn’t involve living in your straw world. Maybe I’ll give some examples when I’ve got more time tomorrow, but I really think that you’re more interested in constructing simplistic dichotomies than really tackling the issue.
Actually I don’t think it’s really a matter of whether we decide to encompass the natural world Mercurius.
We seem to be completely dependent on a wide range of basic biological and geochemical processes whether we want to accept that or not.
I can agree with the critique of some of Hamilton’s style and moralising. Though I actually find the micro-manage legalistic-moralistic approach to human affairs seems a quite popular ‘solution’ which many people and public figures make these days (even here at times). Whether that is moralising over ‘affluenza’ or making rules and subsidising (financially and morally) ever more consumerism and useless plastic crap to fill the oceans with… The first signs that in a resource depleted world people are starting to jump to what seems like a simple solution, fine/imprison/kill/tazer the ignorant/bad/dangerous others and we’ll all be fine?
Sounds like a descent into conflict more than a solution.
.
Being a nature observer, it seems self evident to me that whilst some comfort and attention helps things prosper. Too much comfort is really quite unhealthy and I think this shows in modern consumer culture (diabetes, depression, anxiety, obesity etc). Challenges are really what gives people resilience, experience and knowledge of themselves and the world. Just as the wind and weather builds firmness in trees. Mollycoddle things and they grow soft, weak and unable to face the normal variation and realities of life. OK the odd branch breaks sometimes, but again, this is perhaps the true reality of things, such is life. Better to suffer an injury and learn, or become such a soft sucker that the smallest change in circumstances proves intolerable and fatal?
The statements about the wonders of science and human accomplishments getting us through seems wildly optimistic and frankly ill-informed. Human progress seems to me to have been a complex weaving path where luck as played as significant role as insight.
I know it’s hard for any of us to imagine that what we have now won’t always be here. Though probably the only certainty is that aside from us all being dead one day. Everything will be completely different, and we (humanity) may very well not be a part of it. For real.
Thanks Quoll for interesting and thoughtful reflections. Good stuff.
But this leaves me cold…
What’s ‘wildly optimistic and ill-informed’ about those statements? We’re still here aren’t we? The ‘wonders of science’ are what’s made it possible to even conceive of the threat, let alone propose solutions, much less to debate it on the internet. If we were extinct, or having this discussion around a cave-fire, grunting and banging rocks to make music, you might have a case.
After thousands of years of disaster and plague and fire and flood and volcano and tsunami and war – we’re still here! Despite everything that’s happened, there are more of us than ever before, living longer than ever before — and yet some people think that’s a problem to solve? Personally, I think it’s wonderful. I think it’s amazing. I think the ‘ill-informed’ position is the one that says we’re all headed to hell in a handbasket and the end of the world is nigh. We’ve been hearing that since the dawn of civilisation, and I guess one day they’ll be right, but then so is a stopped clock, eventually.
What’s coming isn’t nice. It isn’t going to be easy, and much of it could’ve been prevented. But I firmly believe we as a species, and as a civilisation, will get through it.
I’d rather keep going with wacky ideas like this than subscribe to the ‘science can’t solve it, nothing can solve it, we’re all doomed, waaaah!’ school, if you don’t mind.
There you go again Mercurius. I’m beginning to think your deliberate misrepresentation of those with whom you dissagree amounts to bad faith.
Anyway, a quote from that excellent web site I linked to, before I go:
Affluenza a myth? What of the Ozlotto hysteria in the MSM? I think the acquisition frenzy really thrived during the Howard years. As part of his ‘relaxed and comfortable’ drive, materialism was strongly encouraged over the fostering of a thoughtful society.
A greater focus on affordable housing issues, suggested by the author, may invite more scrutiny of government funding for these projects. It’s a lot more multilayered than the uninitiated would realise. Rudd has talked of public housing but in reality most funds are going to investment-driven NGO social housing providers who charge tenants a lot more than the traditional 25% of income in the Australian public housing platforms. Victoria has had this model since 2000 and it certainly hasn’t abated homelessness. Negligible new public housing has been created. This is a discussion for another time but it is a big scam that reveals the self-interest of corporate welfare and housing NGOs who are forever speaking out on behalf of those in disadvantage while reaping huge government funding packages for basically maintaining the status quo – such as only providing transitional housing which acts as a revolving door for those in crisis without offering long-term stable housing options.
Adrian, please. Throughout this discussion I’ve advanced any number of ethical and practical suggestions and remained civil. I’ve heard the view put that we’re all in terrible trouble, but that science is not the whole of the answer (even though without science we wouldn’t even know there’s a problem) — and when I ask, in good faith, ‘well then, what is the rest of the answer?’, I get no response other than to be accused of bad faith for asking the question.
You’ve made all sorts of cryptic references to something other than science that’s apparently going to solve all this, without stating what your prescription is. C’mon Adrian, if you have the answer about how to save the world, this is no time to be coy about it. You’ve not addressed in any substantive way the ethical or practical arguments about real human needs that I’ve taken some care to elaborate, and when challenged to do so you’ve confined your response to snippy two-liners that infer there’s something terribly wrong with my position, except you won’t spell out precisely what is wrong with it, other than to repeat your initial assertions more forcefully and denounce me personally. Yet, for all this, apparently I’m the one arguing in bad faith.
I agree with the AGW science, I agree that action is needed, I agree that people will need to change their lifestyles. But since I’ve committed the heresy of being optimistic that the problems can be solved, and I’m not interested in indulging in Greener-than-thou moralism, and I think we’ll find our way forward through a better scientific understanding and approach to the problem, apparently I’m to be treated with suspicion. Your sect is very pure, but I suspect not very successful at convincing people to change their behaviour.
‘Seriously, by some estimates New York City residents have a carbon footprint that’s about 25% of the average American, which is to say about half that of the average Australian.’
Yes, by the estimates that ignore the fact that New York lives and breathes on the economic cream skimmed off the carbon emmissions generated by carbon creating economic activity from the rest of the world. This is unrealistic. Without factories, farms, mines and even dull regional towns there would be no New York.
Mercurious, please don’t feel insulted, but I think you are, at heart, what Jim Kunstler (and others) call a Cornucopian.
Unlike you, I don’t feel the least little bit hopeful any more. Fortunately for me, I’ll be dead before the worst of it hits us, as I’m nearly 60 and if I’m lucky I’ll live for another 20 years (what with my unhealthy diet and the amount I drink), but my children will still be around when the world descends into a Hobbesian nastiness. I’ve taken to apologising to them, and I’m encouraging them to buy firearms.
Malthus was correct.
“You’ve not addressed in any substantive way…” and “…snippy two-liners…” sum up adrian’s comment history wonderfully. Almost invariably content-free, it is. And yet, even without any actual content, he still comes across as wrong. It’s quite uncanny. Actually, I take that back: some of his posts contain content. Those are the ones that consist of block quotes from someone else.
To take the debate on something of a tangent, if we are all agreed that consumption alone cannot make one happy and that material things don’t produce enduring satisfaction or wellbeing or comfort, then why, once we’ve set things up so that everyone has the basics (which, with some obvious and indefenisble exceptions, is what we’ve done in Australia), do we obsess over income and wealth inequality? I am inclined to invoke the politics of envy but that is the lazy way through.
BBB
David Irving, very well then, I am a typology! I have been outed as a Cornu-whatsit. You can recognise us by the badges we wear – they’re fruity!
BBB, your question is not a tangent at all – thank you for bringing the discussion back towards Mark’s focus. I’m very wary of approaching the “politics of envy” discussion, as I think that short little phrase is the tip a very large iceberg or, perhaps more aptly, the cap on a very large and explosive volcano.
I don’t know precisely what phenomenon the “politics of envy” refers to. I’ve never met a “politics of envy” in the wild — I’ve only ever seen it used as a silencing device against anybody who has a complaint about distribution of wealth. So, functionally, that’s all that “politics of envy” means to me: it’s a great big STFU from the betters seated at the high table towards anybody who is uppity enough to complain about their portion of gruel.
But to your general question — when you ask why we ‘obsess’ over income and wealth inequality, I take your implicit position to be that inequality per se is not something that ought to alarm us, that it’s a generally (within limits) acceptable by-product of our society, it’s part of the landscape and we ought not quibble over it. Perhaps it’s as natural and as inconsequential as say, tigers having different patterns of stripe or birds of different plumage.
But what if that is not the case BBB? What if the consequences of inequity are lower birthweights and poorer nutrition leading to impaired physical and mental development, lower quality of life (think teeth, vision, backs and organs) and ultimately, shorter life spans? Few if any of us (I hope) would quibble over addressing the needs of persons with missing limb or a mental illness with measures they need to live with dignity — and I suggest to you that the consequences of sustained inequity and disadvantage are every bit as serious and therefore as deserving of our attention.
Nor is it enough that our society be organised so that it provides equal access and opportunity in theory – this principle must be borne out in the form of more equitable outcomes, or else it is just cant and worse, obscures the perpetuation of the problem behind a modesty veil of notional (but not actual) meritocracy.
For example, do we see that two people with the same MBA will attain the same ‘captain of industry’ status, if one went to Cranbrook and the other is the proverbial boy from Bankstown? The one has access to a non-meritocratic social network that means a pair of doofuses like the sons of Murdoch and Packer between them get a new toy (One.Tel) to play with and ultimately wreck. The boy from Bankstown gets their MBA, a handshake, and is politely declined an interview or a seat at the table.
Those are the roots of inequity that we can ‘obsess’ over with, I think, some justification. Because the results of such inequity become embodied in the physical well-being of people at different locations in the socio-economic strata. I don’t think that labels like the “politics of envy” even begin to address the real issue.
Mercurius, a Cornucopean is someone who believes (put rather broadly) that if we’ve got enough money, God’ll put more oil in the ground.
I realise this isn’t exactly what you’ve said, but it’s not substantially different in intent.
OK Mercurius, I’ve got a little bit more time today. As you probably realise there are a number of things that we can do as individuals to lower our environmental impact, from relying less on our cars, to consuming less electricity to relying more on locally grown produce and taking care to recycle as much as possible and using less water and increasing our reliance on alternative energy. None of these measures are exactly revolutionary, and none will destroy our way of life as we know it.
They also won’t solve the problem on their own, which is why we need a combination of individual action, government and corporate action, and yes, technological and scientific advances if we are going to get through this impending crisis.
To assume that a magic bullet will come along and save us the trouble of maaking some serious changes, is, well cornupcopian. As the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Royal Society of London said, we cannot just rely on science and technology to solve these problems, which is what I have been saying all along.
I can’t understand why this is apparently so controversial.
BBB @ 101 – perhaps it not so much that having stuff makes you happy, but lack of stuff makes a lot of people unhappy. Maybe thats just another way of saying politics of envy.
Mercurius,
Meritocracy is a system of giving power and responsibility to those with demonstrated ability and is closely linked to the idea of equal opportunity. It’s completely different from the idea of equitable outcomes unless you make the absurd assumption of equal ability.
Today’s capitalism is certainly a long way from being an ideal meritocratic system, however blindly enforcing equality of outcomes across groups defined by the political flavour of the day is not exactly heading in the right direction. By enforcing equality of outcomes one makes the assumption that there is no effect on ability determined by which group someone belongs to.
Looking at your example, being able to access a particular social network can be huge boost in terms of ones demonstrable ability in the context of a business position. Thus according to a meritocratic system, the ones with those connections should get the position. You seem to be pushing for something more of a geniocracy where positions are given to those with abstract abilities (such as the ability to graduate an education course) rather then a direct assessment of how they would perform a particular role.
Hey Desipis, aren’t you practicing a little geniocracy of your own here — haven’t you here ‘abstracted’ an ability out of social connections?
You’ve reconceptualised the old school tie (surely the very symbol of nepotism, cronyism, chinless wonders and all that, yes, I’m looking at you Lachlan) into a meritocratic virtue.
Nice try, but I ain’t buying it.
Mercurius,
Perhaps I should have been clearer that it’s only a component of the overall mix, but it is still a component of ones ability to perform in business situations. If you want to argue that the weightings used by the top end of town are out of whack I’m not going to disagree with you.
Hardly. I’m not arguing that the old school tie should be the only thing considered which is how cronyism works. I’m simply pointing out that all else being equal that the ones with the old school ties will perform better, thus under a meritocratic system they should be the ones given the positions.
And as GoTroppo noted, the issue of the desperate scramble for stuff driving us away from other people isn’t addressed here.
Okay, let’s wave the Magic Fairy Technology wand and give ourselves infinite energy and infinite resources with an infinite sea to dump all our waste in. Rightyo. Everyone happy?
Well, no. There’s a humorous but true article, 7 reasons the 21st century is making you miserable. Basically, we are intimately connected to less and less people, and we are less and less involved in our communities.
Study after study shows how when tvs appear in a community, participation in community things like church and bowling clubs and sports declines. And similar studies put connections between car ownership and obesity, or computer game console ownership and lack of playing sports.
So all this stuff actually takes away the things that give us a good quality of life: other people, and our health.
And since in fact we don’t have a Magic Technology Fairy, not only are we destroying our quality of life in terms of people and health, but also our quality of life in terms of having a pleasant natural environment to live in. Nobody goes for holidays to concrete parking lots or open-cut coal mines. We go for holidays to “natural” or “historic” places. We are most happy when in natural environments, and with other people and their cultures.
As I’ve said before, I don’t care about the Earth, I care about people. It just so happens that the things we do which harm the environment also harm us as people, our health and enjoyment of life.
As I said, the book is the Limits to Growth of its day: much criticised, rarely read, and even more rarely understood. People would rather quibble with the details than deal with the actual point of the thing.
That’s the point of Affluenza: we have a feverish pursuit of stuff, and the stuff and the pursuit make us unhappy.
Are you sure this isn’t just a case of the grass looking greener on the other side? Quite a few of the people I know who’ve lived or live on a farm get quite excited about a trip to the big city.
The words “addiction” and “denial” certainly come to mind.
I didn’t read the book, but I’ve read articles by him, and he is a little forbidding, but I don’t think it’s about class. I’ll bet if you asked a good cross section of the community whether they think we’re all too materialistic, the overwhelming majority would say yes.
Still, if you don’t like being told off, you might feel more at home in the Church of Life after Shopping . (What would Jesus buy?)
Yes, but when in the city do they express a desire to stay? Whereas, people who visit nature reserves and cultural heritage sites do express a desire to stay. Not all, but many.
And lots of country people loathe the city.
It’s not really a country vs city thing. It’s the sort of space we have around us. There are pleasant public spaces, and unpleasant ones – both in city and small towns. And there are pleasant and unpleasant homes in both places, too.
It’s our lifestyle overall, city or country. We have a lifestyle of accumulating stuff, and working overtime to do it. And this lifestyle is demonstrably making us less happy, making us connected with fewer and fewer people, and making our physical health worse and worse.
We don’t like to address this, as it’s a critique of a fundamental part of our society. Questioning the worth of consuming to a Westerner is like questioning the Resurrection to a Christian. You can do it, but it strikes at a supporting column of the building of their life and worldview. Take it away, and it collapses and they need a new one.
It’s like an addiction, though isn’t an addiction. It’s like it in that we continue with it not because it makes us happy, but because it makes us unhappy. If it made us happy we’d stop and be content. But because it makes us unhappy we keep trying…
“Wow, there’s nothing on tv, we better get a plasma screen.”
“I hate driving, I’ll get a bigger car.”
“I’m fat, I’ll buy a treadmill to walk on.”
(etc)
Nobody really wants to address this. It’s much easier to quibble about the cost of washing machines in 1955 compared to 2005, or some nonsense like that.
Surfers Paradise? Las Vegas? the Costa Del Sol in Spain?
“Questioning the worth of consuming to a Westerner is like questioning the Resurrection to a Christian. You can do it, but it strikes at a supporting column of the building of their life and worldview. Take it away, and it collapses and they need a new one.”
There are numerous traditions in the west that do precisely this, features of which have been synthesised into Hamilton’s formulations. Reaction against perceived decadence has a long history, whereas the affluenza thesis seems always to have an incredibly short memory, as do its proponents.
@9
The argument from cost with regard to Foxtel versus opera, footy etc overlooks the fact that if you subscribe to Foxtel you may be getting what is a very cheap product to produce (i.e it’s mostly re-runs and promos). It’s a question of MacDonalds v steak burger quality v quanity.
Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone. That’s what you’re referring to, kiashu.
yeah, and I refute his whole bowling alone thesis – it doesn’t stand up to analysis at all. His definition of community and community participation is so narrow it can’t help but confirm his original thesis.
It would be like me saying that since people stopped using horses and carts, that that the sales of oats have plummeted, and thus we are all getting fatter from unhealthy breakfasts.
His data points are way too cherry picked.
This is a bit like saying it’s impossible to spend more money than you have, so the whole concept of living within your means is nonsense. In a way it’s true: eventually your assets will be exhausted, no one will give you any more credit, and you can’t spend any more. However, you might not like the sudden bump at the end, and you might be better off moderating your consumption to a long-term sustainable rate, or even a rate at which you gradually accumulate assets for your successors.
My theory based on an empirical study of one (me) is that consumption is a byproduct of the earning of filthy lucre, not the cause.
As babies we feel we are the focus of the universe, then as time goes by we increasingly recognise we’re just another one six-billionth of the world’s human stock, and that we really don’t matter very much. So we have babies to lend us some second-hand importance … but that’s only a temporary fix. So, the main thing we do is to ‘big up’ our jobs. That focus usually leads to higher salaries than we actually need for a comfortable existence. Which in turn leads to the plasma tv and the maserati – not because we particularly need them, but because we have all that money to spend.
So, it is the search for importance in an overpopulated world that leads to over-consumption rather than “an insatiable desire for ‘stuff’”.
Jenny @119, I reckon you have something here: “So, it is the search for importance in an overpopulated world that leads to over-consumption rather than “an insatiable desire for ’stuff’”.
They say that people like their things to reflect who they think they are, or who they want to be. The marketing guys work hard on this “who they want to be” stuff, especially for luxury goods.
Cars are an absolute classic example. Logically, we would get the most economical and fuel efficient car to solve the problem of getting from A to B. That would be the Hyundai Getz, according to the latest RAC magazine. If you think diesel is the way to go, then it would be the Hyundai i30. A step up from that, is the Prius neck-&-neck with some of the smaller German diesels, in terms of cost and fuel efficiency.
Better half and myself have just been having exactly this discussion. Lo and behold, he wants something cool (as per Jeremy Clarkson’s criteria) with muscles under the bonnet, whereas I want heroic, first-generation, low-carbon technology. We could happily agree on the electric Lotus Elise (Tesla) – both cool and heroic – IFF we won lotto, and IFF we only needed to carry a toothbrush with us on holidays. Do we need a Tesla? Well, actually no. But it would be fun to drive!
I approach this topic with mixed feelings. I recall a joke in which a person studying the issue of alcoholism saunters up to someone propped up mat the bar with a beer in hand and asks for his definition of an alcoholic. The chap turns and indicate another chap a bit further down the bar. ‘Him’, the man slurs ‘he gets pissed on Sundays too.’
What is wasteful or excessive consumption is very subjective. I daresay each of us has an idea of products or services that are downright boneheadedly stupid. I recall during the last summer, visiting the home where No2 son had spent the afternoon hanging out just after dusk. It was still stinking hot outside, but these people lived in Arcadia, and I rather fancied they’d have some pretty impressive aircon to deal with it. Surprisingly, though the atmosphere inside was even worse. They were running the aircon at full power, but there was no way you’d have known. What they did have was a massive flatscreen TV that would have doubled as a heater in winter. Out of curiosity I wandered up and placed my hand on the screen and it was hot enough to hurt. Hmmm.
Personally I don’t much like those ‘urban assault vehicles’ either — which strike me as irredeemably stupid. That said, I also recognise that the distaste I feel is essentially arbitrary. For all I know, there’s a good reason why the one that seems outrageously excessive makes sense. No way would I be in favour of becoming the Minister for Socially Responsible Consumer Behaviour. I strongly believe that people are entitled to offend me with their conduct unless they infringe some practical benefit I’m entitled to claim. If you want to live in a free society, you have to anticipate being irritated at others’ choices. The pay off is you get to annoy others right back with yours.
That of course is a quite separate issue from the broader question of what is sustainable in a global sense. While it is indeed a truism that humanity cannot consume more of the world’s resources than are there, humanity can certainly consume more than can be persistently harvested at the current cost in human labour, and consume in a way that alters the biosphere in ways that subtract from our comforts or those available to our descendants.
It seems to me that sustainability is something we humans need to learn how to do, and in a hurry, and if that means rationing basic things like clean water and fossil energy and land using suitably robust price signals, then so be it. Let people make whatever choices they think apt, but let each of us pay a price that can ultimately ensure that the value of the commons is preserved.
One last point. The Health & Hospital Reform Commission recently published a report that said that 70% of the health budget was tied up dealing with what they called ‘lifestyle diseases’. One need not be a patronising snob to note that some choices, far from being rational exercises in cultural preference harm both the person choosing and the community at large. Maybe one can’t call poor diet, excessive alcohol consumption, insufficient exercise and persistent smoking ‘affluenza’ but one should surely call it something suitably condemnatory.
” we have a feverish pursuit of stuff, and the stuff and the pursuit make us unhappy.”
Really? My feverish pursuit of shit (have you ever noticed that your shit is stuff and everybody elses’ stuff is shit) makes me happy. My job is enjoyable and makes other people happy. I spend money on clothes and people compliment me on them. I spend money to go to the gym and meet lots of nice, supportive, cool people. I spend money to go to the pictures and, if all goes well, I come out more cultured and thoughtful (or at least more relaxed). I work and work and work, and this enables me to make charity donations where I see fit. I’ve got HECS debt up the wazz, but the education that gave me this debt is what enables me to manage the other debts I have (and even, heaven forbid, not get into that debt in the first place).
Been poor. Been rich. Rich better.