We really need to stop buying shit.

I’m not suggesting that capitalism itself has to go, as I think that markets really might be our best idea so far when it comes to managing scarce resources. Instead, it’s the whole ‘14 things you should buy right now’ kind of instant consumerism that starts to feel a bit desperate and silly in the face of climate change and global inequality. The idea that it’s to anyone’s benefit to ship pieces of plastic around the world and into landfills at a faster and faster pace should not be getting the traction that it does.

I’ve been reading a 2009 book by Tim Jackson called Prosperity Without Growth, and he makes a convincing case that one of the most significant obstacles to building an economy that isn’t based on increasing consumption is that our social norms (and public policy) have all been built around the idea that status is signaled to others via the ‘stuff’ we have.

This will be a hard nut to crack. Given the hard ecological limits of the planet, the whole world can’t aspire to an affluent Western way of life - the numbers just don’t work. Perhaps in the future we will be impressed by people living simply and end up with an economy to match, but for now it seems like we could start with the easy stuff. I think a good sign of progress here might be when the Amazon affiliate market starts to run dry.