Red, Green and Blue: Overt Consumption as a Lifestyle?
Editor's note: Red, Green and Blue is Green Options' weekly take on politics and the environment from both sides of the aisle. Jimmy Hogan represents the conservative position. Ryan Thibodaux's progressive take on this issue is here.
I’ve run the numbers and done the math. Because of our progressive tax structure I could easily quit my job and do just as well financially as I do now. My wife and I are a pretty typical two income professional household. Given income tax, social security taxes, sales taxes, etc. about one half of the second income ends up going to taxes in one form or another. It would be easy to fire the housekeeper, clip coupons, mow my own grass, change my own oil, dine out less and basically play defense with the family budget to the point where our lifestyle would actually be improved over the way we live now.
So what is it that drives me and everyone else like me to continue on this gerbil wheel of production and consumption? I’m not sure; but whatever it is, it is good for society. As of the 2004 data available here (table 6) over 68% of the federal income taxes are paid by the top 10% of earners in this country; and the top 50% of earners pay 96.7% of the total federal income tax bill. These taxes go to fund many programs including education, health and welfare and, certainly not least important, our federal government’s contribution toward environmental research and conservation. Given also that charity and private contribution to environmental causes must come primarily from those who actually have money, the higher income groups also fund private efforts disproportionately. The spending of this group also keeps all number of service jobs going that would not exist otherwise.
So back to the question. What is it that drives us to produce such that we may continue to residually benefit our own society and the world in such a large way? Top earners don’t have to work. Most could get by on much less than they earn now. It is a fact that our society is funded by people who choose to work, not by people who have to work. I believe that two basic freedoms contribute to this. The opportunity to earn a living doing what we want to do and the opportunity to spend surplus earnings in the way we see fit. Without these two factors our huge economic engine, upon which all public and charitable efforts depend, collapses.
Since I can only control my own desires and excesses, who am I to judge the excesses of others? If ownership of a big, honking, gas guzzling SUV motivates someone to get up and go to work every day then I’m not going to judge. I might question his intelligence given current gas prices, but that’s up to him. If I limit that which motivates him to produce, am I not harming the overall economic cycle? There’s nothing evil or wrong with overt wealth. As distasteful as it may be to some, the fact that Rush Limbaugh had about a million dollars to spend on a bionic ear actually blazed the trail for others and made the technology more affordable for less fortunate people with hearing loss.
If we index the cost of jet fuel and electricity to their real environmental and geopolitical costs then I say good for him that he can afford it. I’ve got a good friend who is a very strong environmental advocate but if I green-rate his BMW Z3 against my miserly 4 cylinder Honda Accord I’m sure I would win the contest hands-down. Does that make him a hypocrite? I don’t think so. I admire his environmental advocacy and enthusiasm (… plus, I must say that Z3 is a pretty sweet ride). The point is that it is fine to be an advocate for conservation, but we must also understand that, in the ultimate definition of unintended consequence. the opportunity for overt consumption is a motivating factor that keeps people working who might not otherwise work. This motivating factor serves our economy and everything that depends upon our economy including the environment.
Tags: Activism, Conservation, economics, Environment, Political News, politics
March 20th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
I have to disagree with at least one statement here: "If I limit that which motivates him to produce, am I not harming the overall economic cycle? There’s nothing evil or wrong with overt wealth." It is an endemic human trait to deplete resources for personal or societal gain at the expense of future generations. History has empirically proven that unless either bottom-up (community based) or top-down (govt./regulation) restrictions are imposed on a society it will:
There is always something wrong with wealth or consumption directly linked to the depletion of a resource. Human nature has to be constrained in some way for an economic future to be viable.
March 20th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
Thank you for your comment, Clayton.
I see the point you are making but I’m not sure I agree with it.
The Tragedy of the Commons argument is often made and seems very logical but I think history proves the Invisible Hand to ultimately be a gentle one with respect to Mother Earth.
I think it goes back to Maslow, in that production in excess of our basic needs gives us the luxury to consider our relationship with nature instead of being in the slash-and-burn survival mode that weaker economies and economic models suffer.
http://rationalenvironmentalist.com
March 21st, 2007 at 3:28 am
What you are arguing is that consumerism is the “invisible hand” that motivates society, yes? And that the positive consequences of this is that it is a win win situation: Joe American gets his SUV and millions of dollars are pumped into other programs.
Where I take issue with what you are saying, is that you present consumption as something that can go on indefinitely, that there the resources are limitless.
You might say that in such a case, a persons selfish interests will motivate him or her to pursue alternate resources: (eg from gasoline to biodiesel).
Where I see the problem with this is not in terms of red, black, and dollar amounts. I see it in the psychological well being of a society.
Consumerism for me is a disease that has associated material wealth with happiness. (Interesting article in the Economist discussed this, by the way).
I believe consumerism has taken us from the 2.5 hour work day (!Kung hunter/gatherers in Africa) to the 12-15 hour work day.
A long work week takes us away from our families, our friends, our communities. Frequently we are tired from work, and watch tv when we get home.
This is the problem with consumerism. Dollars to not make for a fulfilling life with fulfilling relationships.
March 21st, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Thank you for your comments, Tyler.
Finite resources arguments go all the way back to Malthus (and probably further). What he failed to calculate in his projections was the innovation and resourcefulness of man which I tend to trust because history has proven it to be highly reliable.
I do concede and I personally believe we are too consumption and ’stuff’ oriented though. I try to limit that in my lifestyle and encourage others to do the same.
Interestingly, I think one of the best ways to do this would be to somehow limit consumer credit; yet I don’t know exactly how to accomplish it without violating my strong belief in the need of laissez faire government.
Let me just say this… “IF YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO PAY CASH FOR YOUR TOYS AND OTHER EXCESSES THEN YOU CAN’T AFFORD THEM”.
There, that should help.
Thanks,
jimmy
http://rationalenvironmentalist.com
April 4th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
I think Jimmy is pretty much right on the money.
The least overtly capitalistic and free societies in the developed world in the last hundred years were probably the USSR and the PRC, and they’re both environmental nightmares. If you want to talk about short-term consumption of resources and ignorance (willful or otherwise) of long-term consequences, there’s a couple of case studies for you. The USSR went through the same industrial base expansion in the 1930s that the Chinese have been going through in the 1990s and into this decade, and the effects were pretty much the same in both places — ecological damage that boggles the mind. It’s a fair argument that those societies didn’t/don’t put the environment as a priority, but it’s not as if the majority of people in those societies ever had the choice to be green.
Market forces are no panacea, but they are powerful, and harnessed to free will and an interest in low-footprint lifestyles they can accomplish quite a bit of what greenies want. I have never understood why it is perceived as unsatisfying if society works toward your goals without activists first having the ability to demand compliance with their goals. To me, the goal seems more important than the ability to demand that the goal be accomplished, but I guess I’m just a myopic free-marketer that way.
The other issue with consumption is that we don’t always consume the same things. Most of us don’t listen to tube radios and drive Model Ts, there has been continual innovation over time. Resources aren’t infinite, but as a population we don’t consume the same resources generation after generation. The products change and like grazing cattle by and large we move to where the longer grass is, resource-wise. The one exception would seem to be petroleum and coal, we’re still using electricity (and more and more of it) and petrochemicals, but even at that our cars are far more fuel-efficient than they were in the 1970s — the market moved to value fuel efficiency over a backseat bigger than an efficiency apartment, and the products changed accordingly. Everything we use uses less energy than the generation that preceeded it, with rare exceptions. I suppose that the complaint would be that people are taking the “tech dividend” in lower energy consumption and using it to get more stuff, defeating the efficiency benefits, but at least people who want to use less are able to use less and less with each product generation — thanks to the people who just want more stuff.
I bought my very last CRT-based TV four years ago. My kids will never buy one. Instead, they’ll get low-consumption OLED panels, or something we haven’t even dreamed of yet. The resources aren’t infinite, but demand changes resource utilization.
April 10th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
I think a fundamental concept that we’re forgetting about here is that our American economy is based on growth. Growth of consumption is a direct implication. It seems to me that there will be an impasse when our technological efficiencies, consumption, and resources all meet each other. Not to mention the fact that developing countries use the United States as a model of prosperity. China has the power to implement a very sustainable public transport system (heck, they built the three-gorges dam, and flooded an area the size of a state- land use is NOT a problem ) but it chose to embrace the American ideal of personal automobiles for everyone. A current campaign in China is “A Thousand Automobiles a Day in Beijing.” The environmental implications of this are severe (look at air quality!) as are the resource problems of fitting 22 million Chinese into their own cars, each running on gasoline. At least their modeling their efficiency standards on the EU and not our CAFE crap…
November 17th, 2007 at 5:21 am
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