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Blue Box 2  Brian Nelson

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Today's  special sale: Business is slow. Call me right now while this include page is up and get a 23% discount off any www.PartyTentCity.com  order.  No charge for shipping if picked up at  31 Gessner Rd.  in Houston, TX  77024 Use PayPal to Brian@NelsonIdeas.com or Call Brian 713-467-3025. http://www.NelsonIdeas.com/Directory-All-Websites/Alphabetical.html
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6  My wife bought a pen yesterday.

Specifically, a Montblanc Boheme Platinum Line fountain pen. That is, she bought a $400 pen.

Hey, don’t look at me. She bought it with her birthday money. And she works for a bank. And it is truly a superior calligraphic machine. And I damn sure know better than to point to the bucket of pens I’ve stolen from various places of business (it’s my personal favorite vice) and say, “but you have hundreds of perfectly good pens right here!

But in case any of you who admire me from afar are thinking about buying me a $400 pen, you should buy me a $100 pen and a DVD-rewritable drive. Or two $10 pens and a 15-gig iPod (with educational discount). Or — ooh! — one of every Prismacolor colored pencil that’s ever existed. I have enough trouble, as she at one point constantly reminded me, keeping track of my wedding ring. (Jeez, you leave your ring home for one two-week-long honeymoon…)

 

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Conspicuous Consumptivitis??? http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=005iQm

Does the strength of our economy depend on our individual financial weakness? That can't be right. Help me out here...

-- Paulineee (paulineee_@hotmail.com), July 10, 2001

Answers

No, it depends on a carefully crafted system that promotes the latest hip-hop and ignores Debussy, that promotes uninhibted sexuality but ignores love, that bleats endlessly about human rights but forgets about human responsibilities. It equally depends upon our children never learning about such things in school, where they would be un- cool, at home, where we are too embarrassed to mention them (often because we don't know enough about 'em).

Our economy is based upon cheap, reproducable, disposible trash and can only function when that which is real, enduring and beautiful is hidden from our youth.

If we want to change this then we must begin by teaching values to our children (presuming we can articulate them sufficiently well to communicate the ideas).

We must also teach them language (a prickly subject in Quebec) for language is the medium in which we think. Fuzzy language leads to fuzzy thought.

I live in Vienna. I go to concerts (Strauss, Wagner, Beethoven) and I see that 2/3 of the audience is under thirty as are many of the musicians. Unthinkable in North America.

If our economy is based on consoicuous and pointless consumption it is because we have failed to retain and teach anything more enduring. We can change it if we will, but it will require committment and work.

-- Jeremy Brown (dipdoc@hotmail.com), July 11, 2001.

Does the strength of our economy depend on our individual financial weakness? That can't be right. Help me out here...

-- Paulineee (paulineee_@hotmail.com), July 10, 2001

Answers

No, it depends on a carefully crafted system that promotes the latest hip-hop and ignores Debussy, that promotes uninhibted sexuality but ignores love, that bleats endlessly about human rights but forgets about human responsibilities. It equally depends upon our children never learning about such things in school, where they would be un- cool, at home, where we are too embarrassed to mention them (often because we don't know enough about 'em).

Our economy is based upon cheap, reproducable, disposible trash and can only function when that which is real, enduring and beautiful is hidden from our youth.

If we want to change this then we must begin by teaching values to our children (presuming we can articulate them sufficiently well to communicate the ideas).

We must also teach them language (a prickly subject in Quebec) for language is the medium in which we think. Fuzzy language leads to fuzzy thought.

I live in Vienna. I go to concerts (Strauss, Wagner, Beethoven) and I see that 2/3 of the audience is under thirty as are many of the musicians. Unthinkable in North America.

If our economy is based on consoicuous and pointless consumption it is because we have failed to retain and teach anything more enduring. We can change it if we will, but it will require committment and work.

-- Jeremy Brown (dipdoc@hotmail.com), July 11, 2001.

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The Propaganda of Prosperity

The Propaganda of Prosperity

The human costs of maldevelopment
by Ivy George
 

previous article next article
My people are tired of development, they just want to live" was a sentiment expressed by Mexican author Gustavo Esteva in his remarks at a conference of the Society for International Development in 1985. Today as we are surrounded by the propaganda of prosperity, it is exceedingly difficult to ponder the exhaustion and exasperation contained in that statement. The 1980s and 1990s have witnessed expanded investment in countries that have relaxed foreign investment restrictions. The friendly logos of Western corporations are seen all over the world from neon-lit billboards to cars, from electronic items to television programs. In Eastern Europe, Marx is out and Ronald McDonald is in, and in Maoist China, Russian prostitutes are available for services.

The size of the global village is shrinking, the middle classes everywhere are swelling their ranks, the course of capitalism is secure and the "free" market has triumphed once and for all. That the gods of the West have won is the gospel of globalism. While this appears to be the surface picture in the popular press, there are nagging realities that continue to beleaguer the prosperous world—the ecological crisis and the population "problem." The two issues are closely related; I will take up the subject of population and consider how it fits in the global context.

What of the population question? What is so problematic about human population that we have to "control" it? Is talk of "population control" a semantic subterfuge for control of poor people, women, and other "inferior" peoples (frequently those of color)?

Is there a Darwinian urge to engage in triage—a medical practice in wartime when physicians save the strong and leave the weak to die? Is it a strategy for the rich and powerful everywhere to carry on as usual with no thought to control themselves and their numbers? Should we not extend the categorical link between poverty and population to include wealth as part of this triangle of crisis? No doubt these are some of the questions I might ask if my class or tribe of people were the targets of some top-down plans to control growth among our numbers.

The world, with more than six billion people, continues to see population increases in the two-thirds world despite a decline in total fertility rates there. From the standpoint of simple formulae, galloping birth rates and lagging economic growth rates are detrimental for social welfare. Economists and demographers see excessive population growth rates as a direct threat to economic development, the maintenance of the environment, food security, and family health and welfare.

In light of this crisis, international development organizations, the World Bank, foreign governments, and Third World governments have long encouraged and instituted family planning programs to reduce the numbers. Yet rapid population growth in and of itself has not always been a problem. Europe welcomed an increase in population during the Industrial Revolution, as did the United States in the 19th century.

Besides the search for natural resources and raw materials, the value of human resources was also a factor in the rampages of colonialism in the past. Today governments such as those of Singapore and the United States welcome the growth in select populations through their family planning programs and immigration policies. Why then is growth in some segments of the population seen as a drag on development—especially if the world’s food supply is adequate for the feeding of its people, as experts in the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization and other development agencies have attested to over the years?

The "problem" of population ceases to be one if there is adequate distribution of food supplies. The economist Amartya Sen defines the issue in terms of "entitlement," meaning there are large numbers of people who have no access to food because of their social locations. Mahatma Gandhi said, "There is enough in the world for everyone’s need, but not for some people’s greed."

At this juncture one asks, What is the link between population density and poverty? Is the relationship cyclical? While countries like Japan, Holland, and Belgium are densely populated, little energy is spent on the control of their populations and their people don’t rank among the world’s nutritionally needy. They trade their electronic goods for food. Conversely, the Indian state of Kerala (which, if classified as a separate country, would be ranked as the ninth poorest country in the world) has low birth rates compared to the rest of India and other low-income countries. Bolivia, with five people per square kilometer, is susceptible to famine.

How many people is too many people? Is the "too many" in reference to their food needs? Are those who are concerned with needs and resources equally concerned with too few people having access to too much, such as Americans who represent 6 percent of the world’s population and consume 35 percent of the world’s resources? Further, is there a connection between overconsumption and overpopulation? In other words are consumptivitis and "over"-population two squares on the rubik’s cube of social questions?

Analysts vary in their explanations of poverty and population. Nigel Twose of Oxfam argues that while poverty that deprives poor people of access to contraceptives is the reason for large families, the poor themselves are reluctant to have large families. Demographers like Paul Demeny suggest otherwise—that poor families are not keen to plan families because children provide social security for their parents.

Regardless of the correctness of their conclusions, the implication is that reducing poverty will lead to the automatic reduction of population. However, as pointed out previously, there are other intervening variables in the equation. In Kerala, despite low per capita income, birth rates have fallen due to a series of redistributive measures undertaken by the government. These measures were enacted in the areas of land reform, price controls on food and other basic needs, free or inexpensive medical care, public housing, educational services, and various social and economic policies to improve the position of the poorest groups in the population.

Research on Kerala and the other Indian states reveals a weak connection between income and birth rates. Rather, studies show that the states’ redistribution of wealth and provision of basic health care contributed significantly to changing birth rates. Demographer K.C. Zachariah notes that the shifts in birth rates were brought about in the following sequence: "reduction in infant and child mortality, followed by or along with an increase in female education, followed by redistributive policies, and finally the official family-planning programme."

This cameo illustration of Kerala leads us to put the subject of population in a larger framework, one in which population is not treated in isolation from the more critical and imperative discussion of development and human welfare. Such an approach rids us of our perception of God’s creatures as a "problem" we must "control." If we see that all societies are developing, our discussion of human population growth will cease to be in the oppositional categories of us and them, rich and poor, Christian and pagan, First World and Third World.

The imbalance of demographics exists in a more cosmic imbalance of power relations at multiple levels in the global community. All are enmeshed in this gridlock of power, hence it is counterproductive for the long term to isolate population growth and treat it as mere cause or effect.

"My people are tired of development, they just want to live." What is the experience of development that provokes such a response? Essentially, "development" is a post-colonial terminology and program that has emerged from the West to identify and evaluate itself and others on the basis of the success of Western industrial capitalism. The assumption behind development thought is that Western economic categories of "needs," "growth," "efficiency," and "productivity" are inherent goods in themselves and are thus universally applicable to all human societies. The post-colonial era in most non-Western societies has been one of adopting, accommodating, and adjusting to this model of "development"—otherwise known as progress.

There is one snag of chimerical proportions in this paradigm of "development"—the suggestion that development can be had without the colonization of "other" peoples, cultures, and ecologies. Historical and contemporaneous dishonesty abounds in the neglect of this reality among advocates of development. Rosa Luxemberg has pointed out that colonialism is a constant necessary condition for capitalist growth. Thus, while development produces certain forms of wealth, there is an attendant creation of particular forms of human misery and marginalization. It is this "maldevelopment" that Gustavo Esteva laments.

When development is enlarged beyond its conventionally economic connotations, we move toward developing in concert with the entire creation—not only economically, but socially, politically, ecologically, and spiritually. Stated simply, an alternative perspective on development is that it is relational. It is the process of becoming fully human in relation to God and all creation.

This scheme will resist the creation and objectification of poor people whereby they are turned into commodities subjected to the whims of others, or to the cruelties of impersonal forces. Development is about choice and responsibility for the individual that frees her to grow personally and socially. Development is about facilitating the individual to embark on twin journeys—an inner journey of spiritual realization and an outer journey of affecting structures around her. Development is about the twin goals of love and justice.

My use of the female pronoun with regard to development is not only to be gender inclusive but it is also to state the fact that women in the two-thirds world have been victims of development. Alongside her stand all indigenous people and nature. Scores of studies show that her workload has increased, her family structure has been split (with the men leaving to find employment), her control of and access to family resources has decreased, the "goods" of development such as health, education, and credit have all been systematically denied to her. This was the unanimous conclusion at the end of the U.N. Decade for Women in the 1980s. Two-thirds world feminists argue that development is a project of modern Western patriarchy.

However, it seems too late in the day to carry on earlier arguments about colonialism, capitalism, the West, and development. It is beyond dispute that Western values have a far-reaching impact on the destinies of poor people and the Earth. While the impact has been largely mixed, it is clear that rich and poor countries are inextricably intertwined in their relationship of dependence. This relationship of dependence is unequal, with the rich and powerful everywhere exploiting the poor to their advantage.

While communism was a reaction to the failings of capitalism, it too has been a flawed model. Both systems have failed to reckon with the ontological considerations of human nature operant in them. It is human nature to exploit, to overpower, and to subdue. It is equally in the nature of humans to resist evil in their dealings with power. Thus for all the homogenization brought on by globalization and development, resistance is also spawned from its recipients. Material prosperity has not been able to root out the universal desires to pursue or preserve values of community, language, culture, kinship, and religion.

In this heyday of global capitalism, there is no evidence at all that people everywhere will find work, shelter, food, clothing, health, education, and all the supercilious "goods" that the multinationals taunt in their faces. There is a widening gap between the haves and the have-nots globally. Increasing numbers of poor people and their children are part of this gap, and it will be these marginalized groups that will challenge the colonialism of development.

Even as the virus of consumptivitis has caught the imagination of the rich and the poor alike, so also the dream and work of solidarity with God and creation grips a critical remnant of people age after age everywhere. This consciousness for solidarity does not stem from the hubris of having a "solution" to the "problem" of population or poverty. Rather, it rests in the knowledge that love, peace, and justice come about in the freedom of the subordinate partner—whereby all subordination is ended.

One does not merely have to imagine the possibilities. We have already been taken over by creative imagination. The recent report of the young boy in California who was embarrassed by hair loss from cancer treatment and the response of his teacher and several of his classmates to shave their heads in solidarity with him illustrates our capacity to give up freely. My husband is witness daily to the extraordinary care rendered to young gay AIDS patients by their partners, gay nurses, and others from the gay community.

The Freirian pedagogy of the poor is insufficient without an accompanying pedagogy of the rich. Conscientization must be followed by advocacy and confrontation to bring about concrete changes in social structures. In the face of corporate evil, the potential for and the actuality of corporate good also prevails.

The attempt at equity is a mutually engaging process between rich and poor, First World and Third World, church and world, men and women. A unilateral attempt at social change and development is rife with all the old images of paternalism and condescension where it is assumed that in time the "poor" will become like the "rich." The ills of affluence that post-industrialized societies are going through compels us to redefine "wealth."

What can we learn from one another? The story of the Good Samaritan is not merely about giving, it is also about shattering an ancient apartheid. An orthodox Jew accepts help from the "other," a pariah, a Samaritan. The Canaanite woman, while pleading on her ailing daughter’s behalf, actually thwarts Jesus’ agenda. Poor women, indigenous peoples, and the Earth have much to teach us about the follies of our consuming culture. We must learn about the poverty of our abundance and also about the abundance of our poverty.

The process of solidarity is ongoing and unending—in our personal, national, and international relations we must understand the virtues of temperance and acceptance. The task of solidarity is a universal one. It is not merely for the First World in its relationship to the Third World, but it is also a challenge for the ruling elites in the Third World in their relationship to the marginalized.

As the century draws to a close, calls for personal and collective introspection are a distant wail in a wilderness burgeoning with materialism. Poor Indian parents are driven to sell their children into bonded labor to nearby carpet factories that export their product to the United States. Little children in a south Indian fishing village are turning blind for want of vitamin A, as the fish caught by their parents are transported to satisfy the dietary whims of faraway consumers. Thai parents would rather gamble with the AIDS virus than with hunger as they send their little boys and girls off to Bangkok to satisfy the sexual fancies of tourists.

The complicity of the rich (from the megastructures of finance and trade to their personal acquisitiveness) in this violence is less than tenuous. In the main the rich would rather not lose their appetite, and so they flip the channel on the poor in their midst. They blame the victims and their "irresponsible" breeding behaviors with little discussion of their own responsibility in the tragedy.

My own hope for the future well-being of our world flags and flails as I see the overwhelming capacity of free-market capitalism and entrepreneurial Christianity to sway and "save" the world. I am moved by a diary entry by Min Chong Suk, a South Korean sewing-machine operator who works from 7 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. in a garment factory (perhaps she was the seamstress of my blue jeans!). She wrote, "We all have the same hard life. We are bound together with one string."

Something within me resonates also with David Jenkins as he writes in an essay on The Power of the Powerless: "It might be that Christians have to decide how to take sides in light of the fact that the Christian’s basic alignment is always with and for the powerless and that it is the power of powerlessness, when taken up in suffering, absorption, reconciliation and love, which is one constantly creative and open-ended force at work in the world." Such truths about our human bondedness and the possibility of God’s presence are our only guarantees as we pursue our personal and collective destiny.

IVY GEORGE, a native of Madras, India, is professor of sociology at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts.

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Blue Box 2  Brian Nelson

 Do you need a party tent of white or silver tarp? Go to www.PartyTentCity.com or to see all my links go to:  http://www.PartyTentCity.com/PTC/Websites.html

Today's  special sale: Business is slow. Call me right now while this include page is up and get a 23% discount off any www.PartyTentCity.com  order.  No charge for shipping if picked up at  31 Gessner Rd.  in Houston, TX  77024 Use PayPal to Brian@NelsonIdeas.com or Call Brian 713-467-3025. http://www.NelsonIdeas.com/Directory-All-Websites/Alphabetical.html
Blue Box 2  Bookmark this page now!  
Contact Brian at 31 Gessner Rd. Houston, TX  77024 Tel. 713-467-3025 Cell 713-927-4479
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10  new internationalist
issue 246 - August 1993

Illustration by CLIVE OFFLEY
Giants stalk, creation trembles Kirkpatrick Sale interprets the ‘gospel of globalism’, the essential values underlying the frenzied drive towards a new world economy.

It is not so surprising that the global corporations that stand to benefit from it have spent so much time and money recently trumpeting the virtues of what is described as the ‘transnational economy’ of the twenty-first century. What’s far more surprising is that they’ve been allowed to get away with it so neatly, without more than a choir-stall of voices raised – late and not always consistently – in dissent.

Of course it’s true that the globalists have been able to develop a gospel full of such chapters and verse as ‘efficiency’, ‘progress’, ‘individualism’, ‘productivity’ and ‘growth’ – and those are hard canons to go up against. But a gospel, after all, is nothing more than a good story (Old English ‘god’ – good, plus ‘spell’ – tale). You would have thought that this late in the day – what with deconstructionism and all – no-one would be allowed to go around spinning their self-serving yarns without some sort of challenge.

Yet here we are with the global gospel everywhere triumphant. The new American President (insofar as he has any convictions of his own) is a proclaimed internationalist, as are his Secretaries of Treasury, Commerce and Energy. And the chief futurist on his new team, Labour Secretary Robert Reich, has been known primarily for his embrace of a global economy in which the US attracts multinational investment by specializing in high-tech/high-intellect production. The Uruguay round of GATT and the new North American Free Trade Agreement, after they go through some tinkering to satisfy a few protectionist types, will ratify the globalism of the industrial world. And the World Bank, IMF, Group of Seven, the European Economic Union and the newly Western-bought UN are in place to guide and protect it. No government anywhere seems inclined to try to halt this economic juggernaut.

And a juggernaut it is: in truth, a Second Industrial Revolution at work. ‘Broad, global forces for change,’ in the words of historian Paul Kennedy, ‘are bearing down upon humankind in both rich and poor societies alike.’ These include, he says, sweeping technological changes in production and marketing, a 24-hour-a-day worldwide financial trading system, an unfettered relocation of factories and trading of products across national borders. ‘Every country is challenged by these global forces for change,’ he says. Most of them, especially in the South, will fail to meet that challenge.

Well, if things are bearing down on us like that, I think it behoves us to take some account of the gospel they are riding on and the values – so deeply held that they are not usually even perceived as arguable – behind it. Because, you see, if those values are allowed to go unchallenged and unaltered, and the gospel of globalism does indeed triumph, the result cannot be anything but the increasing impoverishment of the South, dangerous economic and political distentions for the North and environmental ruination of the greater part of the earth.

In one sense the values of globalism are just the values of modernism – the overarching ideology of industrial capitalism – writ large. And we needn’t slog through all of that familiar and drummed-in litany. There are four key values, however, so important to the emerging global order and so vulnerable to examination, that they deserve some scrutiny.

Monoculturalism – The idea that the world is a single, interdependent market lies behind the commitment to free trade and what the Chief Executive Officer of United Technologies calls ‘a worldwide business environment unfettered by government interference’. In this industrial monoculture factories and people, like parts, are interchangeable, and ‘Coca-Colonization’ extends to every corner of the globe.

The first victims are of course the familiar nation states, whose borders and governments are now impediments – as much in the North where administrations are seduced or bought, as in the South where they are subverted or controlled. Thus over the last decade we have seen the disintegration of national governments in Eurasia, the total collapse of central authority in a variety of states and a hell-bent drive to join in the capitalist game from China and Vietnam to Poland and East Germany.

But monoculturalism won’t stop there. Its need, which has always been the need of industrial capital, is to destroy regional identities, indigenous cultures and even stable communities. Traditions rooted there – self-sufficiency, sustainability, handicrafts, ‘enoughness’ – the market system must eliminate for its success.

Technophilia – What was once a simple drive to replace human work by mechanical work has become a near obsession in our machine-dominated society. It is not merely that the globalists have machines that can slosh billions of dollars around the world instantly at the press of a key, or can alter equally genes or ecosystems or atmospheric layers. What’s critical is that their perspectives must succumb to the patterns set by these machines. Problems must be posed in ways that can be solved by them.

Wealthy Mongolian cradles his mobile phone: the 'velvet trap' of modern technology has spread around the globe.
CHRIS STOWERS / PANOS PICTURES

There’s a lot of talk these days about the ‘information age’ and a ‘post-industrial world’ built on ‘knowledge industries’ and the like. It is what America is supposed to become in the next century, along with a few other chosen partners like Japan and Germany, while most of the industrial world and all but a select few parts of the industrializing world drop farther into poverty. It sounds good to many, and even astute critics like David Morris of the Washington-based Institute for Self Reliance seem to believe that computers will empower individual citizens and permit decentralized independence from the megacorporations.

Nonsense. ‘Information’ is just the currency of the globalists’ machines. The globalists made the machines in their own image and they control the kinds of information those machines are capable of using: the quantifications of life, the reduction of human complexities to analogues. And they are not much interested in empowering citizens or they wouldn’t give us those machines in the first place. To believe otherwise is to fall into the trap of technophilia – a velvet-lined trap, with its VCRs and microwaves and
wordprocessors, but a terrible snare and delusion nonetheless.

There should be no doubt about the fundamental dangers of believing that machines are here to solve our problems. They exist out of their own imperative, a technological imperative backed by a utilitarian science that, as Lewis Mumford so cogently saw, is really ‘the ultimate religion of our seemingly rational age’. He called it ‘the Myth of the Machine’ and warned explicitly of what it meant: ‘bigger and bigger, more and more, farther and farther, faster and faster’– not to mention worse and worse, riskier and riskier, deadlier and deadlier.

There should also be no doubt that if there is to be any salvation for the twenty-first century it will come through biophilia, some kind of profound and thoroughgoing love of nature and a respect for her laws and imperatives. All of which, I need hardly say, are opposed to those of globalism.

Consumptivitis – It is so elemental that we almost overlook it, but the unalterable foundation of industrialism is the disease of unending consumption – of what, it hardly matters – and its accompanying unlimited production. A global economy guided by free trade – that is free of environmental laws and price constraints and resource allotments and national allegiances and labour restrictions – can go into a frenzy of production and consumption, prodded by advertising, sanctioned by consumer culture and driven by the materialism that lies at the heart of Western society.

This consumption need not be equal, within or among nations, to work. In fact the accumulated buying power of the rich must come from the increasing impoverishment of the poor – the underclasses within industrial society (growing by record numbers in the 1980s and 1990s) and the still-colonized countries elsewhere, whose distance from the rich nations is vast and growing wider each year.

There are limits to all this, of course, and they are set by the earth and its systems, already seriously over-stressed. But they are of no concern to globalists, since by definition they have no home and couldn’t care less about that care-of-home that goes by the name ‘ecology’. Without restraints the megacorporations are free to use up resources at an ever-faster rate (remember, the scarcer the resource the more valuable it becomes), to foul the biosphere in their processing of them and to poison air and soil in their disposal of them. There is no concern for the inevitable ecocidal end of this because the corporation, again by definition, does not comprehend the future and must maximize profits in the shortest run possible.

Giantism – Perils there may be in bigness, as the struggling IBM, General Motors and even Mitsubishi demonstrate. But this is the imperative of successful globalism. What you lose now in workforce you simply gain later in hassle-free automation, reduced labour costs and increased profits. Despite its problems General Motors is still the number one American corporation. Moreover the occasional and inevitable misstep (for with all their megamachines, large enterprises are always less efficient than small) is more than made up for by the immense power the global players have. They can twist laws and regulations, shift plants around the globe, open or close markets, set prices, monopolize research and development. The rules, written by the big players always favour the big players, and are designed to forgive them for their flaws and failures.

It has become commonplace to note that such power is beyond the control of any mere citizen or consumer. But corporations have never been democratic, nor were ever meant to be. The largest of them are for the most part impervious not only to popular pressure but even to government suasion. They owe no loyalty to any town or even nation. Wasn’t it revealing that the US pavilion at the World’s Fair in Spain last year was such a meagre, flimsy thing? The main reason was that American companies one after the other refused to kick in funds and thus become associated with the United States. They wished to be seen as ‘global’ instead.

And since there is none to take them on and all the powerful international institutions like the World Bank are of their own making, there is none to halt their increasing growth, or their increasing power to impoverish the people and imperil the earth. Giants really do stalk the world, and most of creation trembles.

The gospel of globalism made up of these essential values bids fair to sanction a corporatist catastrophe in this next century. And I’d be hard put to identify – alas, even to imagine – the forces that would be able to undermine its potent message and the likely outcome. We know what values we would put in its place: community, democracy, decentralization, biophilia, harmony, sustenance. But it is difficult to see what gospel would be able to proclaim them forcefully enough, effectively enough, quickly enough.

Perhaps there is comfort in the knowledge that, in time and probably not too far hence, the earth will recoil from the assault of globalism and in some awful spasm will dispel it and all its work, as a dog shakes off water after a plunge. Whether we will be here afterward, of course, is an open question.

Kirkpatrick Sale spends as much time as he can in rural upstate New York. He is currently working on a book on technophilia.

 

11   Overconsumption

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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 resources in Overconsumption:

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A Critical Decision

Washington Township, OH, USA
 
The Critical Decision Foundation is an educational organization that encourages citizens around the world to study and question the insidious and dangerous influences large corporations ...
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2. Campus Greens
Chicago, IL, USA
 
Campus Greens is a national organization that unites students across the country who share Green values. The national office acts as a network of support ...
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3. DON'T LET THE UTILITIES TURN OUT THE LIGHTS ON SOLAR ENERGY
San Francisco, CA, USA
 
A Message From Bonnie Raitt and Robert Redford: As people who've been active in the environmental movement for a long time, we'd like to tell you ...
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4. EarthScore: Your Personal Environmental Audit & Guide
Lafayette, CA, USA
 
An interactive guide for people to learn how they impact the environment in thier daily lives. Joel Makower says, "this clever book allows you to assess ...
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5. FREETHIRDWORLD
Atlanta, GA, USA
 
Organization that promotes global health, environmental health, and other important issues that affects the masses. Provides invaluable resources and links to individuals and organizations that ...
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6. Global Issues
 
An insight into numerous inter-related global issues, such as the environment, human rights, geopolitics, trade, poverty and economics. ...
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7. Green Living Center: You and Your Car
USA
 
Learning to meet our transportation needs while not excessively adding to air and water pollution takes a very big commitment from every family. ...
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8. M. ED. Program through Cambridge College
Surry, Maine, USA
 
The International Institute for Humane Education (IIHE) offers people world-wide the chance to earn a Master's Degree with a concentration in Humane Education through Cambridge ...
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9. Never Enough Anticonsumerism Campaign
Manchester, United Kingdom
 
A critical look at consumerism, poverty and the planet ...
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10. OEKOWEB: Die Plattform für Wirtschaft, Umwelt und Gesunde Zukunft
Vienna, Austria
 
The OEKOWEB, as Austria´s central environment-portal, offers access to more than 10,000 adresses concerning economy, environment ...
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11. Population Connection (formerly Zero Population Growth)
Washington, DC, USA
 
Population Connection (formerly ZPG) is a 35 year old national nonprofit organization working to slow population growth and achieve a sustainable balance between the Earth's ...
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12. Scientists Say Future Is In The Balance
 
In 1992, Sir Michael Atiyah, president of the Royal Society of London, and Dr. Frank Press, president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, issued ...
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13. The Two Faces of Leo
USA
 
Leonardo DiCaprio will host this year's Earth Day, but his past two film projects -- including the recent movie 'The Beach' -- have done more ...
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12 Over-consumption

 

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Energy consumption per capita per country

Energy consumption per capita per country

CO2 emission per capita per year per country

CO2 emission per capita per year per country

Over-consumption is a concept akin to overpopulation, referring to situations where per capita consumption is so high that even in spite of a moderate population density, sustainability is not achieved. For example, the People's Republic of China has an area comparable to that of the United States of America. China's population density is 4.7 times higher than that of the USA, but its per capita energy consumption is 9 times lower than that of the USA, so that in spite of its "overpopulation", China uses only half the amount of energy consumed by the USA.

Over-consumption is measurable. Two articles in Physics Today, July 2004, showed that the combination of over-consumption of energy and over-population may have serious consequences for the future of mankind if action is not taken in this generation. An excessive consumption of energy that is generated from the combustion of fossil fuels is the main cause of global warming, and other pollution.

Over-consumption creates an overclass who suffer from affluenza. This in turn leads to overpopulation, which is when a species exceeds its carrying capacity. Excessive unsustainable consumption leads to resource depletion and reduced ecological health.

The concept was coined to counter rhetorical use of overpopulation, simplistically referring to population density without taking into account per-capita consumption, by which developing nations are judged as consuming more than their economy can support. A key argument, often made by Green parties and the ecology movement, is that consumption per person, or ecological footprint, is lower in poor than in rich nations.

However, the Worldwatch Institute said the booming economies of China and India are planetary powers that are shaping the global biosphere. Its State of the World 2006 report said the two countries' high economic growth hid a reality of severe pollution.

The world's ecological capacity is simply insufficient to satisfy the ambitions of China, India, Japan, Europe and the United States as well as the aspirations of the rest of the world in a sustainable way, the report added. It said that if China and India were to consume as much resources per capita as Japan in 2030 together they would require a full planet Earth to meet their needs.[1]

[edit] See also

13  Consumption

 

Home > Library > Reference > Wikipedia

consumption (economics)
For other uses, see consumption

In economics, consumption refers to the final use of goods and services to provide utility.

Keynesian economics and aggregate consumption

In Keynesian economics aggregate consumption is total personal consumption expenditure, i.e., the purchase of currently produced goods and services out of income, out of savings (net worth), or from borrowed funds. It refers to that part of disposable income (income after taxes paid and payments received) that does not go to saving.

Discussions of human consumption of resources play an important role in both economics, environmentalism and geographical analysis.

In Keynesian economics, "consumption" is short-hand for personal consumption expenditure and is determined by the consumption function, especially by the marginal propensity to consume. It is part of aggregate demand or effective demand.

Consumption can also be defined as "the selection, adoption, use, disposal and recycling of goods and services", as opposed to their design, production and marketing.

History

John Maynard Keynes developed the idea of the consumption function, which sees a consumption as consisting of two main parts:

  1. Induced consumption refers to increases in consumer spending that occur as disposable income rises. Increases in consumption follow the famous marginal propensity to consume. An increase in disposable income leads to an increase in consumption, moving along the consumption function in a graph.
  2. Autonomous consumption refers to consumption spending done as part of long-term plans for the future (smoothing out income fluctuations, providing for retirement and other expected future events, etc.) and as a result of habits and contractual commitments. Changes in plans, expectations, habits, etc. leads to shifts of the consumption function in a graph.

Often, as in the permanent income hypothesis, the word "consumption" refers instead to the benefit received from consumer goods and services (as opposed to the amount spent on such products).

Studies

Studies of consumption investigate how and why society and individuals consume goods and services, and how this affects society and human relationships. Contemporary studies focus on meanings, role of consumption in identity making, and the 'consumer' society. Traditionally, consumption was seen as rather unimportant compared to production, and the political and economic issues surrounding it. With the development of a consumer society, increasing consumer power in the market place, the growth in marketing, advertising, sophisticated consumers, ethical consumption etc, it is recognised as central to modern life. Sociology of consumption has moved well beyond Veblen's early work on 'conspicuous' consumption. Current theories investigate the role of economic and cultural factors in constraining consumption, as development of an approach that sees consumers as 'victims' of producers and their social situation. A counter theory highlights the subversive aspects of consumption, with consumers buying and using goods, places etc in ways unintended by the producers. Examples include city squares turned to skateboard parks, and music sharing on the internet.

Studies of consumption come from a variety of backgrounds. Consumer studies attempt to help marketing. User research aims to improve product design. Feminist studies highlight the importance of women as consumers, and particularly the role of the domestic arena in consumption. Media studies try to understand the consumption of media products such as television and video games. Critical Theory is an important influence on contemporary studies, as consumption is central to contemporary culture.

Studying consumption can be done through traditional survey methods, or various ethnographic techniques. Consumption studies are difficult because they involve investigating everyday life situations, bringing research into the private domain, rather than formalised settings such as the workplace.

Bibliography

  • Pierre Bourdieu (1979) 'Distinction', Routledge
  • Daniel Miller (1998) 'A Theory of Shopping', Polity
  • Slater (1997) 'Consumer Culture and Modernity'
  • Friedman (1994) 'Consumption and Identity'
  • Mackay (1997) 'Consumption and Everyday Life'
  • Mary Douglas and B. Isherwood (1979) 'The World of Goods', Routledge

See also

14 Consumerism & Altruism

Many nations' material standard of living is now higher than ever. Production of material things has skyrocketed – but is still a way behind consumption, and further still behind demand. Does consumerism make people happier?

The citizens of the so-called 'developed nations' consume more products, live in bigger houses, use more consumer durables than those of the rest of the world. They have a higher material standard of living. However, social indicators such as family structure, suicide and crime levels tell a different story. Family breakdown, stress, loneliness and depression are much higher in the ‘developed’ countries. This is both a result of and a cause of increased economic activity, for many reasons. One of the main ones is that depressed people are encouraged to cheer themselves up by consuming.

In the past recreation was spent mainly in non-consumptive activities, such as appreciating nature or visiting friends, but this is harder in a deterioriating social and natural environment. Isolation is reinforced by industries that have sprung up to encourage indulgence in selfish consumption - whether of food, drugs, digital culture or other means of escapism. A paradox of our system of economics is that although this tendency is disasterous for the individuals concerned it is great for economic 'progress'.

In extreme cases such as suicide, such pathological consumption may harm rather help the economy. However, although such counterproductive consumption constitutes a downward spiral for the individuals involved, it represents a virtuous cycle for the economy, which benefits from increased levels of consumption and hence work from those concerned. Shopping is the USA’s most popular recreational activity.

Altruistic actions (almost by definition) boost well-being and happiness and so decrease depression and the associated habits of pathological consumption. Moreover, activity done out of love is often given away and so is part of the unseen economy, substituting for regular spending and reducing the size of the official economy.

Obesity is an obvious symptom of over-consumption. By 2000, two thirds of Americans were overweight1 - a proportion which is still rising. One can only speculate how this affects the self-esteem of those affected, in this world in which millions of people are literally starving. Overeating is widely known to be unhealthy, so one can see the obesity epidemic as evidence of how adept large organisations (i.e. companies) have become at manipulating individuals against their long term interests. Self-destructive overconsumption applies to many aspects of society, especially in 'developed' countries. In USA, most people devote hours every day consuming digital culture while families no longer spend time together in conversation2. Many countries are following this model, in spite of the unprecedented damage to family and community life3.
Organizations exploit the vulnerable by encouraging them to see themselves as consumers. This has lead to negative social cycles of selfish over-consumption, followed by depression and further stress. Adopting an attitude of altruism is a positive way to resist consumerism. Improving relationships with others helps people feel positive about themselves as people.

15  Effects of Over-Consumption and Increasing Populations

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  • by Anup Shah
  • This Page Last Updated Wednesday, September 26, 2001

The State of the World, 1999 Report from the Worldwatch Institute suggests that the global economy could be seriously affected by environmental problems, such as the lack of access to enough resources to meet growing population demands.

Environmental degradation can contribute to social and political instability, which can lead to security issues. This has not currently been addressed by the foreign policy of many nations.

(As a side note, it is interesting to note that there are books and insights popping up that predict future wars will be a new kind of war; resource wars. Yet, this is what it has typically been throughout history, but fortified with ideologies and religions. Ideologies and religions offer different ways to live, and hence different ways to use resources. See the trade and economics section for more on this aspect.)

As the effects of globalization are creating further disparities and inequalities, around the world we are seeing an increase in violence and human rights abuses as disputes about territories, food and water are spilling into wars and internal conflicts. People are fighting for basic needs.

The following are some of the areas of current and future tension. (Note how in the case of many of the regions mentioned below, wealthier nations have often been involved to extract and consume the resources leaving even less in the region for growing populations to contend with.)

  • the various conflicts in Africa. It is also feared that conflicts involving water will increase.
  • the Middle East where national interests in the vast oil fields have led to wars and influence from states like USA and UK.
  • the 1998 riots in Indonesia fueled by the current global financial crisis.
  • the Nile area, where Egypt rely on downstream water largely controlled by Ethiopia.
  • Iraq, Syria and Turkey where there is tension surrounding the water flow of the Euphrates and Tigris.
  • Israel and Jordan, where Israel cut water supplies to Jordan due to sever drought
  • Israel and Palestine also are fighting over water resources as well.
  • The Chiapas region in Mexico
  • Water scarcity in the Gaza region has contributed to the tensions in the Middle East.
  • Environmental scarcity and social tensions in Pakistan have led to a worsening situation.
  • Tensions in the Narmada region in India between indigenous people and the government.
  • Environmental scarcity in Rwanda contributed to the ethnic conflicts in 1994.
  • Degradation on the environment and an increase in population is fueling tension in South Africa.
  • In Equador, it is predicted that extreme violence is going to be seen at indigenous protests against giant oil corporations.

World Watch Institute also point out that water will once again be at the center of new conflicts. They point out that things like IMF and World Bank-backed privatization policies, flawed big damn projects etc have caused further tensions, protest and violence.

Many from those conflicts above, and other conflicts not listed, also see the underlying cause of overly corporate-led globalization as a root cause as well, as they and the foreign policies of the wealthier nations have allowed economic and resource-controlling policies to be instituted in their favor.

Also, while famine is often said to result from effects that are said to be caused by over-population, it is often overlooked on how the impact of politics and economics have a far more significant impact on famines than do "over" population and that those impacted would have a distinct class distinction.

"Modern famine responds far more to market forces than to absolute physical scarcities and rarely strikes the well-off. During the great Irish potato famine of 1846-57 which killed close to 1 million people, large landowners routinely exported food to Britain as poor peasants dropped all around them. ... Even in 'classic' twentieth-century Third World famines like that of Bengal in 1943 which killed several millions, wealthy tables remained laden. During the African famines of the 1980s one never heard of massive deaths among bureaucrats, businessmen and army officers ... In the North or the South today it would take a rare combination of circumstances - utterly failed harvests plus a shutdown of trade due to war or similar calamity - to reduce the rich to malnourishment, much less starvation."

-- Susan George, The Lugano Report, (Pluto Press, 1999), pp.105-106

It is often claimed that population increases lead to poverty and this is why the poor suffer, but as shown throughout this site, causes of poverty are not in population increases, but due to economic and geopolitical reasons.

For additional examples of how resource usage is so skewed and how this can lead to conflicts and wars see the consumption section on this web site.

16 Theory of Fraud and Over-Consumption in Experts Markets

Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics

Author Info

Ingela Alger ( ingela.alger@bc.edu) (Boston College)
Francois Salanie ( salanie@toulouse.inra.fr) (INRA-LEERNA, Toulouse)
Additional information is available for the following registered author(s):

Abstract

Consumers often have to rely on an expert's diagnosis to assess their needs. If the expert is also the seller of services, he may use his informational advantage to induce over-consumption. Empirical evidence suggests that over-consumption is a pervasive phenomenon in experts markets. We prove the existence of equilibrium over-consumption in an otherwise purely competitive model. This market failure results from the freedom of consumers to turn down an expert's recommendation: experts defraud consumers in order to keep them uninformed, as this deters them from seeking a better price elsewhere. Our model also yields predictions on the diagnosis price that are in line with stylized facts, and provides a theory for why risk-neutral consumers would demand extended warranties on durables.

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17 An Energy Summary of the United States of America

USA Flag USA Map
Overall Production and Consumption
Even though the United States is the world's leading energy producer by a wide margin, it is also the world's leading energy consumer by an even wider margin. The net result is that United States is the world's greatest net energy importer, presently consuming about 1.4 times as much energy as it produces, and is dependent on outside sources for crude oil and natural gas. The United States presently accounts for about 17% of the world's total annual energy production and about 23% of the world's total annual energy consumption. An historical summary of Total Primary Energy Production (TPEP) and Consumption (TPEC) for the United States is shown in Table 1.
Table 1: The United States' TPEP and TPEC, 1993-2003
(in Quads)
  1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
TPEP 68.30 70.71 71.18 72.50 72.43 72.83 71.71 71.27 71.92 70.98 70.50
TPEC 87.62 89.28 91.24 94.26 94.77 95.19 96.84 98.96 96.51 98.10 98.84
note: 1 Quad = 1 quadrillion Btu
Source: DOE/EIA
Petroleum
The United States has proved oil reserves estimated (as of January 2005) at about 21-29 billion barrels. The total annual crude oil production of the United States ranks it third-greatest in the world (behind Saudi Arabia and Russia), accounting for about 8% of the world's annual crude oil production. Total U.S. consumption of petroleum is by far the world's greatest (accounting for about one-fourth of the world's annual total), which results in the United States being the world's greatest oil and oil products importer. Nearly 60% of total U.S. oil and oil products demand is now covered by imports, with about one-fifth of the imports originating from the Persian Gulf area. The greatest suppliers of oil and oil products to the United States are Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Venezuela, and Nigeria, in that order. Demand for crude oil in the United States has been slowly but steadily increasing; annual consumption is now about one-sixth greater than it was a decade previous. In contrast, domestic production of crude oil had been steadily dropping and is now at a 50-year low. Increased production is likely before the end of the decade, however, with more oil coming from deepwater areas of the Gulf of Mexico and new technology becoming available to increase production at mature oil fields. An historical summary of petroleum production and consumption in the United States is shown in Table 2.
Table 2: Petroleum Production and Consumption in the United States, 1993-2003
(in thousands of barrels per day)
  1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
Production (total)* 9,602 9,413 9,400 9,445 9,461 9,278 8,993 9,058 8,957 9,000 8,797
Production
(Crude Oil only)
6,847 6,662 6,560 6,465 6,452 6,252 5,881 5,822 5,801 5,746 5,681
Consumption 17,237 17,718 17,725 18,309 18,620 18,917 19,519 19,701 19,649 19,761 20,034
* includes crude oil, natural gas plant liquids, other liquids, and refinery processing gain
Source: DOE/EIA
Natural Gas
The United States has proved gas reserves estimated (as of January 2005) at about 192 trillion cubic feet (tcf), which represents about 3% of the current world total. The United States is currently the world's second-greatest producer of natural gas, after Russia, and accounts for about one-fifth of the world's annual natural gas production. It is also the world's greatest consumer of natural gas, accounting for nearly one-fourth of the world's total annual natural gas consumption. About one-fifth of all natural gas consumed is now imported, and more than 80% of U.S. natural gas imports are from the western provinces of Canada. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is presently imported via terminals located along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coast, and LNG imports are expected to greatly increase, to more than 6 tcf annually, by the year 2025. Demand for natural gas in the United States has been slowly increasing over the past decade and is now about 8% greater than it was a decade ago. More than one-third of the natural gas consumed in the United States is for industrial uses, with about another one-fourth used for power production and slightly more than one-fifth for residential use. An historical summary of natural gas production and consumption in the United States is shown in Table 3.
Table 3: Dry Natural Gas Production and Consumption in the United States, 1993-2003
(in tcf)
  1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
Production 18.10 18.82 18.60 18.85 18.90 19.02 18.83 19.18 19.62 18.93 19.04
Consumption 20.79 21.25 22.21 22.61 22.74 22.25 22.40 23.33 22.24 23.01 22.38
note: "dry" gas means gas with condensates removed
Source: DOE/EIA
Coal
The United States has recoverable coal reserves estimated (as of January 2005) at more than 270 billion short tons