Gavin Maclean writes that people need to "understand the absolute necessity of reducing consumption".
Gavin Maclean writes that people need to "understand the absolute necessity of reducing consumption".
Opinion by Gavin Maclean
OPINION
In last Friday’s opinion column, Dr Bryce Wilkinson misrepresents the issue of climate change, and reinforces the myth that economics is all about money, when of course money is merely a tool to manage the distribution and consumption of real things.
It’s hard to imagine anyone spending so much time worrying about the future magnitude of GDP, when what will matter is the real resources that will be left to spend it on.
You can easily raise GDP by passing money from one person to another, but that is meaningless in itself: if macro means big, and big means the world, it is macroeconomically meaningless.
Much the same applies to “labour productivity”, if production is measured in mere dollars. Productivity too easily gets conflated with sheer production — the growth mindset — and hence a euphemism for consumption. The column clearly gives this impression.
We know, and planetary overshoot (not only “climate change”) continues to tell us, that consumption must go down, not up. This is not “fashionable” talk, but increasingly simple and obvious science.
If kids are being “organised and encouraged” into agitating over these things, it is a tiny proportion of them, while the advertising and consuming world keeps seducing the majority into the cosy mentality of mindless growth.
Probably all, deep down, realise the enormity of what’s facing them, while relatively few dare to face it, let alone express it. Perhaps such cognitive dissonance is behind the problem of school attendance dropping in priority. It could actually be an omen of burgeoning honesty.
Gavin Maclean: Faster productivity growth does not make “everything more affordable”, unless you are thinking in terms of a privileged minority — thinking small.
To resist the suicidal status quo is hardly a matter of “uncosted policies”. It is to oppose the accelerating loss of habitat, human and non-human, that is priceless — beyond measure by the simplistic dollar.
“Competitive markets” are of little value when sensible co-operation is paramount. “Overseas investment” is a tired old mantra when investors are available only if they can eventually take away more than they give. These expressions belong in the small-thinking world.
Faster productivity growth does not make “everything more affordable”, unless you are thinking in terms of a privileged minority — thinking small. We have seen the great acceleration of the last half-century make almost everything scarcer, and right now are complaining as costs continue to rocket. Complaining, or the alternative, downsizing.
Low growth might be “stagnant”, but radical degrowth is the great hope, bringing leisure (the other result of increased labour productivity as opposed to increased production), freedom, and above all, restored biodiversity.
Only days ago I read: “Atlantic currents that regulate our entire climate are going haywire, and coral reefs from Mexico to Australia are blistering to death. Millions of people are already running from wildfires, famine, and floods every year — and it’ll only get worse. The climate crisis will affect us all for the rest of our lives. The younger you are, the more severe it could become.”
This year I read in George Monbiot’s book Regenesis: “The crop-growing band of land will move towards the poles; a third of the population could be confined to places with an average annual temperature of 29C.”
I do not seek out such statements of doom, and I know they fatigue us very quickly; but they are everywhere, and I do expect commentators, even economists, to have some idea of reality, and understand the absolute necessity of reducing consumption.
This means doing less — a zero-cost policy — and that means ending meaningless jobs and the production of an awful lot of junk.
Gavin Maclean is a retired science teacher who teaches singing and is a wood turner.
