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A flourishing economy in a finite world?By: Ken Baker, Regional Landcare Facilitators It has been said that our current growth-focused economy is based on spending money we don’t have, on things we don’t need, to create impressions that won’t last, on people we don’t care about. So, why do we bother? Well, according to anthropologists we use material ‘things’ as a kind of symbolic language to tell stories to others about how successful or important we are. Conspicuous consumption, the theory goes, is a powerful way of telling a ‘story’ about an individual, group or nation’s importance. However, it’s not just about ‘story telling’ for aggrandisement. Research has shown that humans have an innate desire for novelty, craving new ideas, adventures and experiences - think of the stimulation that is provided by trips overseas or material goods such as iPads, LED TVs, etc. Economist and author, Tim Jackson, thinks that our natural desire for novelty is being exploited and ‘super-sized’ by marketing strategies that are designed to drive and expand economic growth. For example, credit cards were introduced to enable us to spend much more money than we actually earned, so that we would buy more things and thereby increase ‘growth’. Why wait till you can actually afford to buy the latest mobile phone or take that trip to Vietnam? Novelty is important to allow us to adapt to changing circumstances. However, novelty vies with other adaptive behaviours that value tradition or conservatism. Tradition is essential to create stability, the focus being on the things money can’t buy, such as family and social relationships and the environment we live in. When growth slows as it did during the ‘credit squeeze crisis’, people tended to save money rather than spend it. This conservative instinct is very much at odds with Government and Business’ reaction to economic slowdown, which was to urge us to spend to stimulate growth. But what would an economy that isn’t obsessed with growth look like? Jackson suggests that it might look a little bit like the 8,000 community-interest companies that have sprung up in the United Kingdom and United States over the past 5 years. These enterprises have ecological and social goals written into their constitution. An example of one such company is an internet search engine called Ecosia. Internet search engines work by drawing revenues from sponsored links that appear when you do a search. Ecosia works in pretty much the same way. However, the difference with Ecosia is that, although it draws revenues in the same way, it allocates 80 percent of those revenues to a rainforest protection project in the Amazon. While this is just one relatively small step towards a more sustainable economy it is a step in the right direction. As resource companies storm from coast to coast seeking to mine resources to feed growing economies, it seems more important than ever that we do what we can to reduce our own consumption. As the saying goes a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step. For those who are interested in reading more the ideas expressed here, I highly recommend Tim Jackson’s book Prosperity without Growth - Economics for a Finite Planet Find out more about the Ecosia search engine here. LPLM 02 6741 8375
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