Consumption Theory - Economics and Ecology: United for a Sustainable World - page 61

These observations on the nature of consumption, as treated in economic
methodology, clearly have implications for the common acceptance of par-
ticular cultural traits, which compose the construction of the national char-
acter. First, people are assumed to always want more than they have and
experience a perpetual tension to better their position. This includes earn-
ing more money, thereby improving their economic lot, and for businesses,
producing more and thus earning more. Competition and the pursuit of self-
interest are not only taken for granted but are even promoted.
Whereas the maximization of personal acquisitiveness is blithely
assumed to be limitless, an individual is encouraged to do everything in
his or her power to further his or her self-interest (i.e., get a better job).
Therefore, promoting each individual's quest for more counts as acceptable
public policy.
All this funnels down to a public-policy emphasis on pure growth . Expand
the pie so everyone can have a larger piece, whatever the effects might be,
which means the concentrations of wealth tend to be ignored. In fact, the
goal effectively becomes undifferentiated growth of aggregated production,
with little attention to the composition of goods and services, the quality of
that production, or the issue of who gets what. If individuals are assumed to
always want more material goods (no matter how much they already have)
and to have the freedom to choose whatever they want more of, then the
compatible version of a macroeconomic policy is simply to maximize gross
domestic product (GDP). In this sense, more GDP is better, and less GDP is
worse, no matter what resources are used or what the nature of the goods in
question might be.
Simply invoking the term growth raises a multitude of important issues—
many of which have been debated for decades. A thoughtful, comprehensive
treatment of growth, along with its meaning and implications as a logical
corollary of the concept of sustainability, will occupy much of the remainder
of this topic.
Toward an Economics of Enough
The important final question of this chapter is as follows: What should the
alternative be? Let us review the major conclusions of the chapter. The basic
necessities of life have evolved into requirements plus wants, which have fur-
ther evolved into wants as personal demands. Sufficiency and survival have
evolved into wealth and acquisitiveness. In turn, the notion of unlimited per-
sonal acquisitiveness as a desirable trait has resulted in the sanctification of
a system that favors maximization of consumption and production at any
cost. Low production is bad, and high production is good, no matter what is
produced. Consumption is assumed to be automatic as income is spent.