Error: Unable to create directory /home/demockra/public_html/wp-content/uploads/2010/09. Is its parent directory writable by the server? I Bought Nothing Today

I take that back. I spent $1.85 on a cup of coffee from Great Harvest Bread Company, but it wasn’t even that good.

The irony of our financial crisis is that we are being asked by our leaders to do the very thing that got us here in the first place: consume. Especially with it being the Christmas season, the time when many retailers get most of their revenue. They need our money in order to stay in business, but we don’t want to give it to them.

And with good reason.

Consumption has been the United States’ mantra for a long time. Today’s sad story about a Wal-Mart employee trampled to death in New York should serve as a poetic reminder that consumption can be deadly. I mean, we already knew it was deadly in the countries where our stuff is made. Working conditions in industrial cities in China are deplorable, equivalent to the turn-of-the-century textile mills and meatpacking plants that we know today only by reading Sister Carrie and The Jungle. It’s worse in African countries where wars are started by diamond companies so that they can get cheap diamonds to sell at huge profits to Western men whom they’ve convinced to spend 25% of their salary on an engagement ring. It’s rare, though, for the pain and suffering caused by American consumerism to occur here on our shores.

Consumers are not so worried now about having the nicest house, the newest car, or the most stuff. They have bills to pay. President Bush’s stimulus idea of last year — to give taxpayers between $300 and $600 in free money — did nothing to help the economy. That’s probably because most people who received such a check didn’t do what they were supposed to with it. President Bush wanted them to go out and buy cars, refrigerators, computers, but consumers wisely decided to save it, or use it to pay their credit card bills. The time is nigh for rampant consumerism, fueled by an advertising industry designed to convince people that they need things that they really don’t. “Black Friday” deals this year were all the more enticing because retailers understand they won’t make that much money this year. Nevertheless, they want to get rid of whatever they can. Which entices consumers to spend, which means they’ll use credit, which means we’ll end up right back where we started.

John Kenneth Gailbraith, in The Affluent Society, bemoaned modern economics’ emphasis on production and output as the sole indicators of a healthy economy. These metrics tell us how well businesses and the wealthy are doing, but not much else. Even Simon Kuznets, the inventor of GDP — that most favored of the statistics that indicate economic health — thought that “the welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income.” GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is the total output of all the goods and services produced by an economy. It can be calculated using the income method, or the expenditure method, with the latter preferred due to its simplicity. GDP is consumer spending plus government expenditures plus capital investment, plus net exports (exports minus imports). GDP places an emphasis on making stuff and spending money. Critics of GDP correctly note that it does not take into account volunteer activity, non-spending production (like that of housewives who don’t work), the black market, happiness, recycled goods, or the quality of goods and services being produced. Annual GDP growth in the United States is about 3%, but how much of that is fueled by cheap crap from overseas? The mantra is that any production is good production, but we have seen that not to be always the case.

And unrestrained production is not sustainable. I used to roll my eyes at phrases like “sustainability,” particularly due to the frequency with which I heard the phrase, due to living next to Berkeley. Maybe it’s the stuff they put in the water in Alameda County, but over the last few years, I’ve come to understand what sustainability means. It means growing a rate that can be sustained over a long period of time, not growing so much that resources are exhausted. If you’re wondering what to get this year for the people on your Christmas list who are hard to buy for, here’s two ideas: a DVD of Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, a copy of Ishmael, and a copy of Ecotopia. (Even better, get all this from a used book store.)

Environmentalism, consumerism, national security — they’re all intimately related. They all depend on us changing our habits, buying less, and if we do buy things, buy recycled and re-used things, so that more resources are not needlessly spent. Consumption is the way to get us out of this financial crisis, but it’s also the way to get us right back into it.