| A recent article in the Post-autistic economics review (issue 42, 18 May 2007, pp 44-45) addresses a question often asked of people advocating less work -- and less consumption. I'll attach the article, since it is freely distributed on the internet. The article is THE MACROECONOMICS OF DOWN-SHIFTING: A SUITABLE CASE FOR MODELLING? by John King and Max Wright of La Trobe Univ.in Astralia. For them, "Down-shifting is an ugly word for a beautiful phenomenon: people reshaping their lives to enjoy more leisure and less income, less stress and – crucially – lower levels of consumption." The article asks the question you may have been asked yourself -- paraphrasing -- "Will down-shifting tank the economy?" An interestingly, they tell us there is a popular Australian TV series "Sea Change, in which the heroine gives up her overpaid, high-stress job in the big city for a more peaceful life in a small coastal town." We NEED such a TV series in the USA! Maybe we can import it? Addressing their economics question, they note that mainstream economists reply that down-shifting it will not sink the economy, but "The average citizen, who has not been corrupted by exposure to economics (as Joan Robinson would have put it), does not believe this. Neither, it seems, does the average climate-change-denying politician, who raises the spectre of global depression at the very mention of green politics and the associated down-shifting. For the politicians, Say’s Law applies in all conceivable situations except this one." The article notes some deep economic theory issues and the authors ask for help in modeling the question, particularly from heterodox econometricians. A good article, and there are even more economic issues than they mention. But in my view they are limiting themselves to "down-shifting" or as we talk about it, "voluntary simplicity." When they include "less income" in the question it becomes trivial, in my view, because the macro-economic impact is destined to be very small, and thus not worth much worry, or deep econometric modeling. There are good reasons why people do not downshift in significant numbers. Well, not "good" reasons but powerful ones. People consume because they are driven to consume and are not (with few exceptions) able to choose to consume less. This is at the heart of our economic problems, our global warming catastrophe, and the failure of our collective quest for a decent and happy life. The article is attached. Gene Coyle |
Macroeconomics Downshifting.doc
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