Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Bricks+Mortar 4ever!
Here's an impassioned testimonial from my friend Ava over at radiatortoast.com on the subject of why one should always purchase one's electronics from a real live person at a real live store.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Wealth, Leisure, and Why We Don't Have More Of Either
I just read this article by Tim Hartford, aka Slate Magazine's "Undercover Economist." Here's the rundown:
Our capitalist economy depends heavily on consumption. When consumer spending increases, jobs are created and we find ourselves living in fine fat times. When consumer spending decreases, jobs are lost and we enter recessionary periods. They only way to reverse a recession, we are told, is to increase consumer spending. To put it another way, prosperity is possible only when we buy ever-greater quantities of shit.
But is this true? Can something so ecologically unsustainable really be the only way? Hartford says there is another option: we need to work less. He writes:
We earn—this is a very rough average—twice what our parents did when they were our age. When today's teenagers are in their 40s, there is no reason why they shouldn't decide to enjoy their increased prosperity by working less instead of earning more. Rather than being twice as rich as their parents, they could be no richer but start their weekends on Wednesday afternoon. If this were a gradual process, mass unemployment would not result. People would simply earn less, spend less, wear a few more secondhand clothes, and spend more time reading or going for walks.
There are various social reasons to explain why this hasn't happened, doesn't happen, and may never happen, but they boil down to keeping up with the Joneses. It's fine and good that we're more comfortable than our parents were, but our wealth relative to previous generations doesn't mean a thing if the Joneses have a new car. Wealth in our society is status, and we're obsessed with it. And so the traditional economic cycle continues.
Will we ever be content with what we have? My guess is no, but Hartford thinks we may be getting closer:
...Leisure time for women has increased by at least four hours a week since 1965. Men have done even better. That may well understate the leisure gains. A hundred years ago, many people would start working at the age of 10 or 12 and work until they died. Now it is common to spend fewer than half our years working; the rest of the time we spend studying, traveling, and in retirement.The "work less, spend less" movement is winning. It's a shame it hasn't noticed.
Maybe Tim Hartford is right. I'd like to think that it's possible for us to give up our bloated homes and overstuffed closets to get more of the one commodity there will never be enough of: time.
Our capitalist economy depends heavily on consumption. When consumer spending increases, jobs are created and we find ourselves living in fine fat times. When consumer spending decreases, jobs are lost and we enter recessionary periods. They only way to reverse a recession, we are told, is to increase consumer spending. To put it another way, prosperity is possible only when we buy ever-greater quantities of shit.
But is this true? Can something so ecologically unsustainable really be the only way? Hartford says there is another option: we need to work less. He writes:
We earn—this is a very rough average—twice what our parents did when they were our age. When today's teenagers are in their 40s, there is no reason why they shouldn't decide to enjoy their increased prosperity by working less instead of earning more. Rather than being twice as rich as their parents, they could be no richer but start their weekends on Wednesday afternoon. If this were a gradual process, mass unemployment would not result. People would simply earn less, spend less, wear a few more secondhand clothes, and spend more time reading or going for walks.
There are various social reasons to explain why this hasn't happened, doesn't happen, and may never happen, but they boil down to keeping up with the Joneses. It's fine and good that we're more comfortable than our parents were, but our wealth relative to previous generations doesn't mean a thing if the Joneses have a new car. Wealth in our society is status, and we're obsessed with it. And so the traditional economic cycle continues.
Will we ever be content with what we have? My guess is no, but Hartford thinks we may be getting closer:
...Leisure time for women has increased by at least four hours a week since 1965. Men have done even better. That may well understate the leisure gains. A hundred years ago, many people would start working at the age of 10 or 12 and work until they died. Now it is common to spend fewer than half our years working; the rest of the time we spend studying, traveling, and in retirement.The "work less, spend less" movement is winning. It's a shame it hasn't noticed.
Maybe Tim Hartford is right. I'd like to think that it's possible for us to give up our bloated homes and overstuffed closets to get more of the one commodity there will never be enough of: time.
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