The word consumerism seems to imply that the act of consuming is the essence of our being, something more profound than what existentialism or Freudianism were hinting at. I understand that pushing a shopping cart and loading it with things that we decide all by ourselves to pick from the shelves can occasionally give us a sense of freedom. But enlightenment?
The word consumerism, according to Merriam-Webster, can mean two different things:
1) the promotion of the consumer’s interests
or
2) the theory that an increasing consumption of goods is economically desirable; also a preoccupation with and an inclination toward the buying of consumer goods
Limitless consumption is something conscientious consumers feel they are against. But being “anti” is hardly ever effective marketing. On the contrary, it creates negative atmosphere, which is exactly the kind of environment that makes people want to “go shopping“.
To be sure, the term “green consumerism” does yield over 90,000 search results on the big G, and it “refers to recycling, purchasing and using eco-friendly products that minimize damage to the environment”.
Minimize – not revert.
Of course, consumers can do a lot to help mother nature, or to improve the health of ecosystems. They can change en masse to using only recycled products, to plant a native tree or two for every pound of palm oil they consume.
All these actions are great, but they need an abundance of a resource we don’t have: time.
What about collaborative consumption ?
It seems unlikely that a variety of “consumerism”, the preoccupation with and inclination toward the buying of consumer goods, is a solution to anything.
From this perspective, collaborative consumption is merely a means to an end. What overshadows the cuddly warmth of the sharing economy is that we as a society have to lower overall consumption of resources or perish. We have to nearly abolish the irreversible transformation of nature into products in order to halt the destruction that is inherent in the process.
If we approach the many creative ventures that we see today from this angle, we need to ask a different set of questions and develop different benchmarks for start-ups in the collaborative economy.
Asking the right questions
Instead of asking “how quickly does shareholder value grow?” we ask “how many cars are taken off the road because of car sharing communities?”
We ask “How many power drills have not been produced every year because of tool sharing communities?”
We ask “How many apartments have not been built because of social co-housing communities?”
We ask “How many passenger miles have not been traveled because of car sharing communities?”
We ask “How many invaluable water resources have not been used up for cotton growth because of cloth swapping communities?”
Sure, such communities can still focus on their own growth (an inescapable side-effect of being funded by venture capital), but that growth has natural limits. When all cars and tools and things are shared, and all vacant bedrooms are filled, the sharing economy reaches a “steady-state” – something anathema to the conventional economic model.
Steady-state and communities
The sharing economy carries in it the seed to overcome the suicidal model of infinite growth, because it serves communities rather than consumers. And for communities more goods and services doesn’t equate more happiness. Of course, this equation doesn’t hold for individuals either, but communities are a much harder prey for the advertising industry, because communities already serve all basic human needs. It’s harder to create the illusion of a lack (for example, that you need a certain carbonated beverage to be happy) in a community than in an individual. To be sure, some things can be formalized within communities as services, but its consequences are always tangible. In other words: There is an optimal amount of social life that can be monetized and turned into services. When we replace maximal with optimal, the notion of endless growth becomes inappropriate. Every sharing venture that wishes to be around for a long time in a community should be heading for a steady state.
A cynic might say that we are consuming the same resources, whether we do it collaboratively or not, and that “community thinking” won’t get us out of our predicament. But there are some powerful effects of the sharing economy. People change their perspective: it’s much easier to consume less if you live in a subculture where that is the norm. They achieve radical reduction of excess capacity and waste through cooperation.
More importantly, these consequences don’t damage the sharing economy. It can handle a steady state. This fundamental difference with classic industrial capitalism that we see shining through is what gives me hope. When the sharing economy reaches its goals, it doesn’t make itself superfluous. When the old model (the one Thomas Piketty has recently gutted in his “Capital”) realizes its full potential – maximum throughput of “resources”, full employment, – it will have destroyed itself and everything in its way. That is, this planet.
We have heard the theory too often: The mantra of the finite planet and the impossibility of infinite growth, the call to spiritually unite as a species, the appeal to something better than greed. We are familiar with the conspiracies that describe the powers behind the scenes, and more often than not inflate them to mythical proportions. But in the collaborative economy, we have the real opportunity to do something about it - something else than “buying green”. Because once we become collaborative communities, we might find that we can pursue happiness without consuming an increasing amount of resources.
Practical advice
I wish I could finish this article with a set of tried and tested guidelines for collaborative consumers, but unfortunately this isn’t the case. Nevertheless, here are a few points you might want to look into if you believe that consumer behaviour (not merely “consumer choices”) can make a difference:
- Share how and why we consume less. I have created this Facebook Page, originally called Do not consume, later toned down to Consume less. The intention remains the same. The amount of junk that surrounds us is detrimental to everything.
- Reinforce each other in our ideas, and transforming the culture. We need this because we are vulnerable too, and some of us might need a replacement for the piles of “stuff” that used to make us feel good about ourselves.
- Use (or build) those sharing economy services that have the best track record of long-term resource reduction. Look through the advertising.
Make it count.