On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 10:59 AM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote: > Of course van Gelder and Pibel are talking about the morality of > society as a whole. But collective poverty simply leaves people > looking back enviously at the golden age of bubbles, SUVs, and > large-screen TVs. If we want a society that is ecologically moral, > etc., it's got to be a voluntary, democratic, and collective decision, > not the result of disaster.
It is really tragic that anyone on the left (or is it the "Left"?) who dares suggest a scaling back of consumption is savagely criticized and even compared with the likes of Mellon. I fail to see anything at all common between what van Gelder et al wrote and Andrew Mellon. van Gelder is not talking about the morality of society; he is making an argument on environmental and sustainability grounds for reduction of wasteful consumption. He is not suggesting "collective poverty"; he is suggesting trading off consumption and workaholism for more leisure. He is not saying the economic crisis is a good thing; he is saying it is an opportunity to make big changes. And yes, there is a lot of wasteful consumption and no, it is not restricted exclusively to the super-rich. Assuming a median US household income of $50,000.00 and using the consumption basket used by the BLS http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/012528.html http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpiri2007.pdf the median household spends roughly $700 on transportation, $150 on hotel stays, $300 on eating out, $200 on apparel, $250 on furniture, $250 on recreation every month. I am sure you'll agree these are not exactly poverty-spending levels. You seriously want to suggest that the whole world can live like this sustainably? And all this is not counting the hidden consumption involved in the process of making food, gasoline etc artificially cheap and plentiful. If even the Left has so little patience for any talk of sustainability, I guess there isn't much hope.. -raghu. -- milli-helen : The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
