Re: [pf] we took the wrong track, in the '50s and '60s

by prichter1

06 December 2000 13:07 UTC

In a message dated 12/6/00 7:30:33 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
davidnh@visto.com writes:

> 
>  But isn't there a difference between consuming and consumerism? What's 
>  wrong with mass production=mass usage, per se? Isn't there a difference 
>  between one's first toilet, first refrigerator, first radio or 
>  television, compared to the third bathroom in a house or the third 
>  television? Some items do actually make life healthier, easier, and more 
>  enjoyable. Many of those items, such as toilets, have a fairly common 
>  design and so are amenable to mass production. Excessive production 
>  capacity brings about excessive marketing, sure. And new communications 
>  technologies--radio, television, etc.--did/does establish the the means 
>  to market widely. For television, at least, that began mostly after WW2. 
>  

David, I see it as all of one piece. When a market for any product is 
saturated, do you stop making the product-- lay people off and drastically 
downscale production-- or do you re-create need for more?   I think the 
answer is obvious.  Economic booms help this process along, and we have not 
been derailed for any significant time since the aftermath of WWII.  But 
economics as a discipline/theory base has only served one segment of the 
population well, those who hold on to power/production. For the earth, for 
people in the third world and for many of us in the first world, the failure 
of economic theory and policy to open itself to broader critique and 
modification has been stunning. So much in our lives play into this, and we 
are only beginning to see that the forces that have colluded over more than a 
century have robbed us of so much and threaten our survival as a connected 
cosmos.

I don't deny that many of the products that have come along as a result of 
this long process have eased our lifestyles enormously. I certainly would not 
want to do without many of the basic comforts that you mention. But we do 
have to take into consideration the cost of all of the products that we use 
-- the impact on our ecosystem and our lifestyle.  One of the things that I 
admire about the Amish is that, when something new comes along, they decide 
as a group (OK, maybe it is only the men, i don't know) the impact on 
*community*.  At one time we had ways of doing this -- now we have to figure 
out ways to make some of this happen.   

I also think that there's a curve at work here similar to the one that 
Dominguez/Robin put forth in _Your Money or Your Life_ -- that "improvements" 
to our lifestyle only really improve up to a point. After that point, you get 
diminishing returns. I think we have crossed that point many, many moons ago, 
but we fail to question the whole dynamic. 

Some early morning thoughts,
Priscilla
PS -- I'll look through my Marvin Harris books at my church office 
tomorrow....