We'll Never Be Happy Consumers Again -- No Stimulus Package Can Bring That Back

Constant growth is a political dream and a nightmare for the world.The world economy has to formed on morals not constant greed for more.

I don't know if increased human involvement in agricultural production is a great idea, but otherwise a very good article.



Constant growth can be supported by education, creativity, and technology.

Growth in consumption that is linked to growth in productivity is perfectly fine.

The problem we should have is when government manipulates financial markets to increase consumption, as that is what results in overproduction and waste.

You always have to use more raw materials to have growth without this you cant have growth .Electricity is the prime example however much you become more efficient growth will always outstrip efficiency.

Mindless consumption is not the same thing as consumerism, in my opinion... When people working hard demand good quality from the products they consume it is a good thing, a positive thing and even perhaps a step toward socialism and social justice....

Yes well two people trying to draw the same line will inevitably come up with two distinct figures. Consume consumer consumption.....I find it had to tell the difference in any meaningful way myself. People working hard spending all their money and borrowing more to buy cheaply produced goods from the third world while ignoring environmental degradation until it becomes a serious problem....a positive thing? I suppose some people have simply lost they belt they need to tighten. A step towards socialism is never a good thing and I don't really understand your connection with that to individual profiteering and consumption.

:research:

There is absolutely no reason to say that growth in consumption requires a growth in raw material use. Technology and expertise is making production and distribution more and more efficient all the time.

I recognize that outstretching our resources is dangerous, but railing against growth itself is dangerous as well.

I think your living in noddy land if you think technology can provide raw materials for consumption and constant growth.The raw materials are running out at a faster and faster rate if we dont stop the inevitable will mean we have to mine our waste dumps because that will be all thats left.

So are you just taking some random unobtainable growth rate and assigning the consequences of that growth rate to all possible growth rates?

I have agreed with pretty much everything you have said, I just don't see where anything you said implies that growth itself is absolutely bad.

Are we growing too quickly in population and resource use? Of course.

Is growth that isn't excessive and dangerous possible? Of course.

Another excellent piece by James Howard Kunstler. While I agree with most people that no longer having Bush as President was change that the country needed, but if the first three weeks of this administration and Congress proves anything is that Washington politics will be business as usual. The attempt to return to unlimited credit is not a change the country needs, and neither are highway projects or continued Pentagon pork.



We'll Never Be Happy Consumers Again -- No Stimulus Package Can Bring That Back | Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace | AlterNet

I don't know if increased human involvement in agricultural production is a great idea, but otherwise a very good article.



Constant growth can be supported by education, creativity, and technology.

Growth in consumption that is linked to growth in productivity is perfectly fine.

The problem we should have is when government manipulates financial markets to increase consumption, as that is what results in overproduction and waste.

This may be off topic but I was just thinking, has anyone ever thought about the American way of life? Our incessant craving for things? Seems to me, that our economy is shaped by this desire for things. The big screen tv, the two or three four wheelers, in the case of the CEO, the vacation house in the Bahamas.

There will never be a balance in the economy unless people quit gorging themselves with "things".

****; we should have things and the time to enjoy them... Damned savages never had to work as hard as us an they had their lives, and their houses... We all ought to be able to get by fine working two hours a day max... That is what our increases in technology should give us if it were not given to feed some *****s incessent craving for profit... All we get to buy is junk... All our lives are wasted at work... We wish our lives away until we have nothing left to wish...If unhappiness was the desired end product of capitalism it could be called a success... Since we only have to work so to feed profit, and because our wages are forced so low they cannot support us, the blessing of capitalism will never be known until capitalism has been swept away... So production to glut on limited resources is pure stupidity...