10 Propositions on consumerism

10 Propositions on the consumer society

Notes from remarks by RDN at a debate with George Monbiot at the People and Planet conference, Warwick University, 4 November 2000

1) Consuming is good. Western consumption is enjoyed by all those who have it and aspired to by all those who don't. It isn't allways "ecologically-sound", by normal "green" lights. But university students often have cars of their own, often travel many miles from home to study, often holiday abroad. All these things widen their horizons and broaden their minds. It is good that young people have a wide choice of clothing with which to enhance and display their sexual attractiveness to one another: who is to choose between "hippy" clothes made in sweat shops in the 3rd World and sold in "pseudo-souks", and for sports-wear made in sweatshops in the 3rd World and sold in malls?

2) Consuming produces good government. Consumer societies are those in which people make and spend money freely, and on a large scale. It is forgotten that wealth produces better government and better government produces wealth. Sophisticated economies require long-term social stability, the rule of law and the free flow of information. Only in the short term do "mafia", "crony", corrupt and violent societies produce viable economies, and only simple industries thrive in such situations. Sophisticated economies require education, legal and media systems to match. Celebrate wealth, and one is the end celebrating responsive government. Amongst other things which affluent consumers demand and get, is high environmental standards.

3) Consuming can be clean. We have the technological means to deliver consumer goods with very light ecological loads. Incineration, clever landfill and recycling (probably in that order) can virtually eliminate the "waste problem"; and solar, hydrogen and nuclear power (probably in reverse order) can handle our energy needs. Spreading these technologies to 3rd World countries requires that they grow their economies fast, and it is that over-arching necessity which "greens" habitually forget. Their growth is required on humanitarian and green grounds.

4) Consuming is the best way to be green. The market everywhere delivers quickly and cheaply whatever is technologically possible and popularly demanded. Naturally, the market needs regulation, and sometimes it needs socially-desirable signals to be sent (perhaps to promote solar research, etc). Where it is possible to turn a socially-desirable good into a marketable good, we are using the most efficient mechanism we have. Modern consumers often demand goods and services of an environmental kind through the supermarket till, but sometimes they demand politicians to ordain them, via the market, through fiscal signals. That is still the consumer society at work.

5) Consumers should argue not fight. Western values include human rights, and these have come to include, controversially, freedom to trade internationally. Western values especially enshrine the value of debate and argument and a reluctance to use violence. It is therefore very depressing to see the "globalisation" debate conducted in part by people who deliberately provoke street riots, as they may have done in Seattle and certainly did in Prague. By every account, the protestors' leaders used tactics which would produce inevitable confrontation. The WTO is manifestly democratically-mandated and is open to democratic control of all its most important main players.

6) Consume to help the 3rd World. The cliche that the "only thing worse than being exploited by multinationals is not to be exploited by multinationals" is an important insight. We buy petrol in the West. Some of it comes from Nigeria. Shell's operations in Nigeria illustrate how a great Western company can generate huge income for a state with minimal environmental damage. The squandering of the revenue is a quite separate issue, and a trivial one in the context of discussing Shell: almost any conceivable alternative to Shell's operation would be environmentally and socially less respectable. In the case of Nike, and its sub-contractors abroad, the key question is whether Nike workers would rather you didn't buy the shoe? It is a secondary important question what if anything could and should be done to improve the workers' lot.

7) Consumers have moral choices. Naomi Klein and others are suggesting that we in the consumer societies should "reclaim our aspirations" (as well as our streets). But advertising and branding is as old as the hills, it is amusing and interesting in its own right, and it pays for the media, including the left-wing media. Advertiser do indeed try to influence us, but they also every day provide us with an opportunity to define ourselves in distinction to their blandishments. We turn down the opportunity to buy the vast majority of the goods and services which are paraded so seductively before us. For most of history, people have had to develop moral fortitude in the face of poverty. Now we develop fortitude in the face of plenty. Which would you prefer?