As I write today, the BBC has a gloomy headline: “Brexit causes dramatic drop in UK economy”. There has been a “dramatic deterioration”, a “record slump”, we are heading for “recession” and there is more “pain” to come. What do these words mean? It seems they mean we have been buying less stuff than normal, and been less busy. The decline in busyness means a fall in business.
If we are less busy, that presumably means we have more time for “leisure” activities, for enjoying our gardens, sports and hobbies, and for appreciating each other. It presumably means we are doing less irreversible environmental damage, causing less noise and pollution, using up irreplaceable resources at a slower rate.
We are brainwashed into believing there is no alternative to feverish and frenetic consumption. Inculcated, we rush about and buy stuff; we don’t know what to do with ourselves if we are not. There is an art to inactivity; and, as with all arts, if it is not practised then we are not good at it.
Post-consumerism
In the depressed aftermath of Britain’s vote to leave the EU, a new phrase is in the media: post-truth politics. It is a phrase apparently coined by the newly embittered establishment to describe its perception of a new era in which brazen liars with money and media presence can dupe the masses into foolish decisions that harm us all. It is not a phrase that suggests much acquaintance with history, though: after all, propaganda is hardly novel.
On the other hand, it seems that we still live in a world of pre-truth economics. Pre-truth because economists have not yet developed a truthful theory for living sustainably, at peace with the world as a whole and not just our family or friends. Even the more unconventional economists like Ha-Joon Chang still, so far as I am aware, pay unquestioning homage to “economic growth”.
Now growth is fundamental to all of nature, and there is no way that we could stifle growth per se, even if it were a good idea, which it is not. But growth is synonymous with economic growth only to minds narrowed by orthodoxy. The challenge we face is to develop more interesting concepts of growth than consumerism. We need to develop a broad new way of life we might term “post-consmerism”.
Why work?
If we consume less and try to live modestly, then less money will be generated in the economy. This need not mean our welfare state, infrastructure and health service are doomed; but it probably is the case we will have to apportion a larger share of our wealth than we do currently to nurture them. We will be materially less well off, and there will be less work done overall. Yet it is entirely possible, despite a reduction in the aggregate expenditure in work of our time and energy, for us still to look after the physical and ethical fabric of our homes and communities better than we do currently.
The thought of not working, or working significantly less than at present, frightens most of us. It makes us more aware of ourselves – our insecurity, anger and fear – and our mortality. Without the structure of work, we have the dizzying freedom to make our own mistakes. As Alain de Botton thoughtfully concludes in his book ‘The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work’, the justification for our jobs is often that they “will have kept us out of greater trouble”.
We need each other and we need structure. Though we pretend we thirst for freedom, what we really desire is to feel safe. Our work-hard-and-consume-hard way-of-life seems to fulfill that desire (even though, paradoxically, it makes the planet less safe for human habitation). We need to recognize this in our own lives, and consider how else we could live, still in a structured society, and still feel safe.
This does not require an overthrow of capitalism, but it does imply a revolution in our daily routine. We need to be materially poorer, more modest in our diet, to live more communally, and to rely more on our own bodies for transport.
It is a vision that only seems depressing when we do not consider the real motives behind our current way of life, and the disappointments of its ostensible rewards.