Consumption: Destructive & Transformative

From quantitative to qualitative development: Consumption & the

Purpose of Production

Top 10 National Consumer Class Populations, 2002

Country No. of People in Consumer Class Share of Population

United States 242.5 84

China 239.8 19

India 121.9 12

Japan 120.7 95

Germany 76.3 92

Russian Federation 61.3 43

Brazil 57.8 33

France 53.1 89

Italy 52.8 91

United Kingdom 50.4 86

The New Significance of Consumption I: Avoiding Redistribution & Needs-based

Development

Permanent War Economy / Cold War

The Suburb Economy: Oil / Autos /

Subdivisions

Creation of “Effective Demand” ; Increasing role of Debt as money; Institutionalization of “work-and-spend” cycle

The New Significance of Consumption II:

Current trends in mainstream enviro regulation

• 60s-70s: end of pipe & point-source pollution • mid-80s on: eco-efficiency & pollution prevention • mid 90s on: consumption patterns & product

design:

Limits vs. Transformation

The Oil / Suburb / Debt / Mass Consumption economy created a structure of development.

A green economy must create a logical structure of its own.

Consumption in a Green Economy

1. Human dimension: from products to services: serving need; resources as means to the end.

– struggle to define “need”

2. Resource dimension: Cycles in closed loops: the “Lake Economy” / biomimicry

– efficiency / harmony / stewardship

Questions• can substantial human self-development take place

without dematerialization?

• can major conservation/recycling take place without human development?

• can Capitalism (a system where money is the end-goal) become a form of Qualitative Development?– the potential and/or limits of “natural capitalism”– a question of not just the structure but the driving forces of

economic life.

Democracy & Consumption: What’s the relationship?

• Who decides what human need is?• Knowledge-based development & participation:

– “eyes to acres” relationship in green production.– Mass collaboration & Peer production in the electronic

Commons

• Info economy & direct democracy– Industrialism & representative democracy– the “stakeholder corporation”

Knowledge & Consumption

• Info-intensity and product/process design• Deskilling of the Consumer: role of eco-literarcy• Market Transformation & Collective

Consumerism• Distributed Regulation: finance, certification,

scale, etc.• Distributed Production: food, energy, building,

craft, preventive health care, etc.

Knowledge in a Postindustrial Economy

• information about products, processes & production• knowledge as gratification / fulfillment• money as information: “…an information system for the

deployment of human and natural energies.”• new forms of work & relationship:

– Prosumption: home & community-based production.– LFP: value-brokers– Interra Project: integrated mode of exchange &

valuation

Self-Development & Consumption

• evolutionary trends toward individuation• class power & dependence

– violence & Wholeness

• Culture-based development & Individuation• ‘Neo-Primitive’ Development: Global Village,

Electronic Commons, Bioregionalism, Field Consciousness– culture-based production & Gift relationships

Dematerialization Strategies

• limits of private consumerism• EPR: ecodesign and closing loops transformative

consumerism– sharing– information: needed to redefine value.

• ESCO model of material wealth creation• The transformation of Retail • Media, Education and Conservation• Green Procurement & market creation• Finance & Regulation

Retailing

• New “Commanding Heights” of capitalism: Wal-Mart and cost-cutting business model.

• reflects importance of end-use• localization strategies: key to

closing loops• Retailers as conservation

utilities?-as learning centres?-as used materials

depots?

Regenerative or Transformative Consumerism

• Goes beyond protectionism to ecological alternatives

• Decreases material consumption, makes it more cyclical

• Overcomes both the isolation and the passivity of the individual consumer, through sharing and “prosumption”.

• Regenerates humans, community & ecosystems. Encourages social justice, quality of work life and the integrity of natural systems.

• Effects ripple – upstream to affect extraction & processing, and – downstream to affect disposal.