(I don't think you understand the energy topics I have been posting. Digging things out of the ground is not sustainable. Here is a short slide show on energy http://jayhanson.us/oil.html Here is a short pdf http://jayhanson.us/SynopsisPics.pdf )
"Consumerism" tapped into our innate drive for status. It's not an either/or condition. People cooperate and compete for status simultaneously (e.g., football, chairman of the board). The problem began with the adoption of manufactured goods and money itself as a measure of "social status." (Compare to the Middle Ages.) World views are "physical" -- neurons and dendrites. Most brain wiring is complete by age 25. Once the consumption status metric was established and promoted, the collapse of the our society and most ecosystems on the planet was guaranteed. It could have been different, but it isn't. Jay On 11/30/2010 12:11 PM, Jim Devine wrote: > Jay Hanson com> wrote: >> Our current crisis arises from our innate drive for social status. "Status" >> is our most-powerful, culturally-determined (not physical like sex) innate >> drive. People will even kill their own children for status (e.g., honor >> killing). >> >> In our society, positional goods (and money itself) determine one's >> neighborhood status. I don't see any way that enough people will voluntarily >> give up the status treadmill unless the economy completely collapses. >> Which, unless a miracle occurs, is precisely what's going to happen. > While there is a "keep up with Jones" mentality in consumer spending > (made famous among economists by James Duesenberry),[*] it's a mistake > to blame the crisis on some innate drive for status. > > First, the status competition can be ended if people cooperate (say, > to enjoy non-commodity goods and services) rather than seeing each > household as a totally independent entity. > > Second, even without cooperation of this sort, I don't think it's a > status competition that caused the crisis. These days, most people -- > even "middle class" ones -- are just trying to "get by," much more > than they are trying to prove themselves better than their neighbors. > In the face of declining real incomes, many people did "over-consume," > but not in the sense of consuming for status competition but instead > in the sense of borrowing too much money (to try to get by). > > Crucially, this "over-consumption" was fueled by a financial event, > the housing bubble, not by excessive purchases by consumers. It's the > bubble that allowed the excessive borrowing: without it, people > wouldn't have had the (putative) collateral that allowed the > borrowing. > > More fundamentally, status competition shows up in different ways in > different types of societies. In a simple society with barter > relations (where commodities are exchanged for commodities, C-C in > Marx's language) or in the idealized market system of Adam Smith, > where consumption is the main motive (commodities sold for money to > buy other commodities, C-M-C) there is a much more limited role for > status competition than in capitalism (M-C-M+extra M). This is because > there is no natural limit to the accumulation of money (and other > financial assets) and the power that goes along with them. But there > is a natural limit to the accumulation of goods and services. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
