Consumption control
From Sustain
We need to cap the greed.
I have no hope that, left to our own devices in the free market, we will spontaneously recalibrate our consumption to a sustainable level. Convincing, cajoling and coercion will, regrettably, be necessary. I am hopeful that willing acceptance of individual responsibility alone can deliver major behavioural change – this remains the most desirable method. I fear that our consumptive lifestyles are too ingrained in our psyches to be freely yielded to the degree required.
To the guaranteed horror of more than just the libertarians, I believe our best hope of adjusting consumption patterns is direct intervention. The technology of today enables consumption management in a targeted and sophisticated manner. Consumption control need not be a return to the dark days of rationing. We have the potential to implement selective accelerated pricing and volume limits for individuals on specific commodities or services (such as energy or air miles). We could also institute absolute ranges upon overall consumption, both a minimum right to a basic entitlement and a legal maximum (from daily to a lifetime).
At some point, we need to stop imagining the free market plus technological advance will deliver us from our problems. Only then can we can start to seriously develop the unpalatable intervention possibilities enabled by technological advance.
If we rein in our consumption as productivity advances, we will need to cope with a dwindling demand for labour. This issue has been long deferred by the creation of new needs. Serious structural adjustments lie ahead if we want to tame our consumption to a sustainable level. While having more leisure time is desirable if spread evenly, the ill social affects of sustained unemployment are many and varied.
The unavoidable transition from the makework of our mindless production expansion stands as a prime justification for guaranteeing that all are unconditionally provided with the minimum required for basic human dignity. With this platform, communities will retain the material quality to peacefully thrive as we adjust to the lower labour demands of the sustainable society.
While the radical flavour of these proposals may not prove practical or persuasive, a comprehensive overhaul of our economic system is mandatory in the next 50 years, be it designed or imposed by circumstance.
If this could be successfully implemented, alongside other reforms, it could form the basis of our Economic renewal
