This is a beautifully written and thoughtful essay. The notion of fallow as investment without growth is expressed in one of the oldest and most enduring visions of social justice: the "sabbath of the land" or jubilee year in the old testament. Reducing the hours of work has long been viewed as a "jubilee of labor", foregoing immediate consumption for social opportunity.
On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 7:00 AM, Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/03/0081958 > Fear of fallowing: > The specter of a no-growth world > > By Steven Stoll > > Discussed in this essay: > > The Age of Abundance: How Prosperity Transformed America's Politics and > Culture, by Brink Lindsey. Collins. 394 pages. $26.95. > > The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, by Benjamin M. Friedman. > Vintage. 570 pages. $16.95 (paper). > > Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, by Bill > McKibben. Holt. 272 pages. $14 (paper). > > From the March 2008 issue. Steven Stoll is Senior Fellow at the Rutgers > Center for Historical Analysis. His book The Great Delusion: A Mad Inventor, > Death in the Tropics, and the Utopian Origins of Economic Growth was > published this year by Hill and Wang. > > Costco shoppers navigate with carts broad enough to seat two children side > by side. The carts had better be big. They need to haul gallon jars of > mayonnaise, 117-ounce cans of baked beans, 340-ounce jugs of liquid > detergent, and 70-ounce boxes of breakfast cereal. The coolers advertised > for summer picnics hold 266 cans. Giant warehouse stores, shelved to the > ceiling with goods from all the waters and forests of the world, make no > excuses for consumption. But although Costco sells its goods in large > packages, there is no item here that cannot be found at a corner grocery. So > why don't I lighten up and buy a pallet of mango salsa? Because thundering > all around me is the scope and scale of American economic growth. Here it is > possible to see the enormous throughput of the economy—its capacity to > mobilize resources and energy and turn out waste. One store manager, on the > floor for fourteen years, tells me he has seen eight pallets of paper towels > move out the door in a single day. At forty packages to a pallet, twelve > rolls to a package, this means nearly 4,000 rolls. I can hear the sound of > chain saws laying off as falling trees cut the air somewhere high in the > Cascades. The question that comes to my mind whenever I catch a glimpse of > aggregate consumption is always the same: How can it last? > > (clip) > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Sandwichman _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
