Surviving Climate Change: Producing Less and Enjoying it More

Panel 6: The Economics of Less Stuff and Better Lives
Sunday, June 29, 8:30 — 10:00 am

Don Fitz is Co-coordinator of the Gateway Green Alliance in St. Louis. He is Producer of Green Time TV and Editor of Synthesis/Regeneration: A Magazine of Green Social Thought, which is sent to members of the Green Party USA.

Toxic poisoning, peak oil and climate change all point to a need to dramatically reduce production. Unfortunately, environmentalists and social justice activists conclude that this means a need to consume less. This comes from accepting the view of corporate economists who assume a strong relationship between production and consumption. The “trickle down” theory of economics is that if more is produced, then people will have better lives.

This has resulted in two opposite, yet dialectically identical, false conclusions. Many environmentalists believe that Americans must “tighten their belts” and prepare for a lower standard of living. Social justice activists often think that attaining a decent standard of living for low income people can only come by increasing production, whatever the environmental and human health costs.

The “Buy green” fad supports manufacturing and selling limitless quantities of new gadgets. This brand of eco-pornography reflects the corporate belief that infinite expansion of production is possible and desirable.

These contradictions can be resolved by observing what has occurred since the decade following WWII –a massive expansion of production with little or no improvement in the quality of life. If this is correct, might it be possible to reduce production with no corresponding reduction in useful consumption?

It’s important to distinguish between Type 1 Consumption, or consumption for genuine needs, versus Type 2 Consumption, which is luxury consumption, wasteful consumption, or consumption to feed corporate gluttony. Since roughly the 1950s, America has witnessed an explosion of Type 2 consumption with no overall increase (and perhaps a total decrease) in Type 1 consumption.

The amount of energy (and person hours) going into food production has increased enormously while there has been a decrease in the quality of food. Military spending has gone off the roof, though very few people eat nuclear bombs. There has been a pseudo-increase in transportation and housing without a corresponding increase in human happiness. Everyday consumer items multiply almost as fast as they break, illustrating the simultaneous growth of Type 2 consumption and decline of Type 1 consumption. The only possible exception is health care, though the extension of life expectancy pales in comparison to the malignant growth of the health industry.

The expanding gap between production and consumption during the past 50 years means that continuous expansion of production is associated with a decrease in consumption (Type 1). We are in a new historic era: The current economy is so twisted that a decrease in the total mass of production is a necessary component of meeting the needs of the poor. The resolution of social justice issues are, in actuality, identical to solving environmental problems. The fundamental principles of ecological production can be brought together in one concept: Production for human need; not corporate greed!

Ben Wuloo Ikari is author of Ken Saro-Wiwa and MOSOP and Inspiration—Speak Your Mind. He is Founder/Executive Director of Ogoni Children’s Cultural and Fundamental Rights Council and a member of the National Union of Ogoni Students.

Too much of anything is bad. The same applies to the over-usage of natural and human resources, which is mostly to the advantage of multinational corporations such as Shell Oil, Chevron, Exxon-Mobil, Boeing and automobile manufacturers.

We therefore need a big reduction for the sake of our health and the environment. All citizens of the world must come together, as genuine stakeholders and bring about a stop to over-exploitation. It’s high time to tell these folks to stop playing politics with our lives, the animals, plants, and aquatics. The biosphere and ecosystems must be protected and preserved.

The continuous exploitation of natural resources hasn’t helped the human inhabitants of the global environment. Neither has it helped in protecting, preserving global flora and fauna. These companies and governments don’t care. They have over the years paid lip services, with no commitment to environmental catastrophes. But we can change our destiny today, if we can come together and pressure these precursors of evil. Despite these hyper-exploitations, there are no quality jobs. Poverty has ravaged the whole world.

Ogoniland, in southeastern Nigeria for instance, where I’m originally from hasn’t benefited in any way from the large production of hydrocarbon and/or crude oil over 35 years. Africa in general, is still languishing in abject poverty. Poverty has overtaking our blessings, riches that come from oil, gas, uranium, gold, silver, bronze, platinum, and cotton, to mention but few. The companies and the federal governments siphons the oil and other wealth and left us with an environment charged with hydrocarbon, radioactive, and other waste.

Peasants have been killed for standing up and demanding a piece of the proceeds that are endowed in their land. These tribes, especially the Ogoni, are gradually facing extinction, considering their physical death, and living in a degraded environment. The Ogoni are struggling to take control of their environment and resources for proper management and protection. Ogonis would determine how many barrels of oil and gas that may be extracted in a day. They will conduct Environmental Assessment, Social and Health Impact Studies, studies that Shell has refused to do for about 50 years.

The obvious fact that endowed resources will run out one day will also be considered so we can plan ahead. This means a need to diversify from a thickly oil based economy to other products that wouldn’t hurt the environment and its inhabitants. It will no doubt contribute to global environmental safety as there will be less emission of carbon-dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons and others greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

We must come together, form a formidable global movement, and take these companies and governments to task for environmental terrorism. They must realistically, honestly, drastically, and effectively reduce, if not totally stop atmospheric pollution by producing less. In nutshell, highly reduced production (output) will unequivocally reduce the adverse effects of human activities on the environment. This will greatly reduce, if not stop, environmental catastrophes.

David Schweickart is author of Against Capitalism and After Capitalism along with numerous articles in social and political philosophy. He holds Ph.D. in mathematics and a Ph.D. in Philosophy and is Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University.

Is “Sustainable Capitalism” an oxymoron? Is Joel Kovel right that it’s either “the end of capitalism or the end of the world?” Or are Paul Hawken, Amory and Hunter Lovins right that we are on the brink of a “natural capitalism” that can usher in an ecological and social utopia, “a world where cities have become peaceful and serene because cars and buses are whisper quiet, vehicles exhaust only water vapor, and parks and greenways have replaced unneeded urban freeways. . . . Living standards for all people have dramatically improved, particularly for the poor and those in developing countries. Involuntary unemployment no longer exists . . . .” I argue that while Hunter-Lovins’ have much to offer and Kovel overstates his case, the fact remains: a sustainable capitalism is highly unlikely. And even if the exponential growth required to keep capitalism healthy should prove to be sustainable, this growth will not likely make us happier. I’ll sketch an alternative to both “natural capitalism” and Kovel’s non-market socialism that is more promising than either. A healthy society based on steady — or declining — consumption (increased leisure substituting for declining consumption) is economically viable, but requires institutions reforms that take us beyond capitalism.

Mitchell Szczepanczyk is a co-founder of and organizer with CAPES, the Chicago Area Participatory Economics Society, and has organized events with CAPES around the model of participatory economics.

Activists in recent decades have been focusing more attention on corporate power, particularly the massive corporate destruction of Earth’s environment and our shared habitat. Likewise, there has been considerable focus in recent years on “political imagination” — to envision and articulate precise rules for a better society, without such massive negative impact, some of which encompasses the new economic model called Participatory Economics. In this presentation, I argue that these efforts can be connected through what’s called the “Montesi Maneuver” — a merger of sorts of here-and-now struggles against corporate predation and proposed in-the-future blueprints of a better society.