|
|
Musings Report 2025-17 4-26-25 How Much Is Enough?
You are receiving this email/post because you are a subscriber/patron of Of Two Minds / Charles Hugh Smith.
How Much Is Enough?
How much is enough? In our "growth for growth's sake" economy, the answer is "there is never enough" because continuous expansion of consumption is necessary to drive "growth," without which the global economy will collapse into a Depression of great suffering.
The underlying assumption of "growth for growth's sake" is that human desires and greed are both infinite, as is human ingenuity. Ingenuity + greed = more goods and services to fulfill humanity's insatiable desire for more of everything.
As social critic Christopher Lasch observed, our modern version of Progress is based on this insatiability of human desires: there is always something more to want, buy and consume, and so growth is limitless.
But are any of these assumptions actually true?
Is it an absolute fact that consuming less will immediately lead to great suffering?
I've been running household experiments on consuming less simply by eliminating waste, and have found that consuming less had no effect whatsoever on the high quality of life we enjoy. Our most recent electricity utility bill shows we consumed 105 kWh of grid electricity, roughly 20% of the average household consumption in our area of 500 kWh per month.
(We have a modest array of 800w of photovoltaic panels--roughly 10% of the typical rooftop solar array--that generate some of our own electricity, but even with this additional electricity generated by "our own utility," we consume about 1/3 of other households.)
Given our culture promotes "growth for growth's sake" and extols profits earned by expanding consumption, and therefore offers few if any incentives to reduce out-and-out waste, it's obvious that we could collectively reduce consumption significantly while maintaining a high quality of life.
So the assumption that consuming less will lead to great suffering is false. It may well reduce profits, but reducing consumption does not necessitate a collapse into Depression.
Is it absolute fact that human desires are insatiable?
In Lasch's book The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics, he traces the modern concept of Progress to the conversion of insatiable desire from a sin that must be guarded against as "a source of frustration, unhappiness and spiritual instability" to "a powerful stimulus to economic development," an expansion that was unlimited as "there was no foreseeable end to the transformation of luxuries into necessities."
Before insatiable desire was worshiped as an economic necessity and transformed into the bedrock of human existence, limits on human greed were viewed as integral forces in the incorporeal realm of Heaven and Earth. Just as insatiable pride leads to hubris and the emergence of the countervailing forces of Nemesis to deliver a reversal of fortune to the prideful, so insatiable desire and greed will generate the downfall of the greedy.
It can be argued that human desires for novelty and knowledge may well be insatiable, but these can be sated without consuming much in the way of additional resources. (Make a new recipe with the same ingredients, borrow a book, etc.)
As for the insatiable desire for more money to buy more of everything, author Kurt Vonnegut recounted a conversation he once had with fellow author Joseph Heller.
"Joseph Heller and I were at a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island. I said, 'Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel Catch-22 has earned in its entire history?' And Joe said, 'I’ve got something he can never have.' And I said, 'What on earth could that be, Joe?' And Joe said, 'The knowledge that I’ve got enough.'"
Source: The New Yorker, May 16th, 2005
The claim that "growth for growth's sake" is absolutely essential to stave off disaster is itself a recipe for disaster, for wasting resources in the purported fulfillment of insatiable desires is a manifestation of greed and hubris on a global scale that has already spawned Nemesis in the many forms of Anti-Progress I've described in my book The Mythology of Progress.
It's clear that waste is not growth, that consuming less does not necessitate a decline in the quality of life, and holding that a throwaway / disposable economy (what I call The Landfill Economy) is absolutely the only way to avoid human suffering is hubristic nonsense, as the path of "growth for growth's sake" and the Waste Is Growth Landfill Economy is the path to economic collapse and great human suffering.
In other words, the status quo has it exactly backwards. Nemesis has patiently awaited our belated recognition of this but has finally become impatient. The consequences of relying on insatiable desires and greed to permanently expand a disposable Waste Is Growth Landfill Economy are currently in the delivery queue.
Highlights of the Blog
The Wile E. Coyote Recession 4/25/25
What's "Normal" in a Hyper-Normalized World? 4/21/25
New podcasts:
Adaptability: The Key to Future Success, with the Contrarian Capitalist (53:40 min)
Trade, Tariffs and Globalization with Richard Bonugli (35:51 min)
Best Things That Happened To Me This Week
I received the following hand-written letter from a reader:
"Reading you every day is a value beyond anything I could calculate. You have the ability to write in such a way that even I, a completely uneducated novice in economics, am able to easily understand your message. We value and appreciate you very much--thank you." Deborah and Bill W.
That is high praise indeed, and I am honored.
In the "grow some food" category, our first papaya tree grown from University of Hawaii agricultural department hybrid seeds for a "dwarf papaya" (i.e. one that matures at five or six feet in height rather than at 8 to 10 feet) yielded a ripe fruit, which is shaped more like a melon or pumpkin that the commercial solo papayas we've grown from volunteer seeds. It has a marvelous star shape.
What's on the Book Shelf
Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis
From Left Field
NOTE TO NEW READERS: This list is not comprised of articles I agree with or that I judge to be correct or of the highest quality. It is representative of the content I find interesting as reflections of the current zeitgeist. The list is intended to be perused with an open, critical, occasionally amused mind.
Many links are behind paywalls. Most paywalled sites allow a few free articles per month if you register. It's the New Normal.
What is the 'rich mom' aesthetic and how can you get the look for less? -- the "rich mom' aesthetic looks like the mid-1980s...
Now comes the 'womanosphere': the anti-feminist media telling women to be thin, fertile and Republican.
Lahaina’s Lessons for Los Angeles: Nearly two years after a deadly fire destroyed homes and businesses in Maui, rebuilding efforts are wrapped up in red tape.
Ray Dalio said history is shaped by five major forces.
My aging parents are in Hong Kong and I'm in LA. I recently dropped everything to spend 3 months caring for them, leaving my own family behind.
Accountants Finally Get the Sequel to Their Favorite Film: ‘The Accountant.’ -- I wouldn't be surprised if many accountants fantasize about mowing down their clients....
Archaeologists Dug Under an Ancient Greek City—and Found a 3,500-Year-Old Egyptian Settlement.
Lefty preppers are taking a different approach to doomsday. (via P. B.)
Researchers thrilled after discovering new species residing in US national park: 'There is a tremendous amount we have yet to learn.'
Attention Homeowners: Here's Where Your Imported Home Goods Are Actually Made.
The Lessons of Trump’s Tariff Exemptions: It’s good to be Apple’s Tim Cook but not to be a small manufacturer that can’t afford a K Street lobbyist. -- Ouch....
Farmers devastated as crops are suddenly wiped out: 'Two-and-a-half months of hard work were destroyed in just two days.'
"People settle for a level of despair they can tolerate and call it happiness." Soren Kierkegaard
Thanks for reading--
charles |
|
|
|
|
|
