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AmandaHungerford-SecondPaper 12 - 12 Apr 2008 - Main.EbenMoglen
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Conspicuous Consumption and the Environmental Movement | |
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< | READY FOR GRADING | | | Premise: if we accept, for argument’s sake, that Veblen’s thesis in The Theory of the Leisure Class is correct, how can the environmental movement hope to survive in a world of conspicuous consumption?
History of the Environmental Movement | |
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> | I think this is too ambitious a heading. The two paragraphs that follow are an admirable summary of the points they touch, but I don't think you can be said to have written "History of the Environmental Movement." How about "The Rise and Trivialization of Environmentalism"? | | | Although the environmental movement has existed in one form or another for the past 150 years, it historically has been a primarily fringe movement. While at times certain issues would capture popular attention, those issues inevitably faded from public consciousness.
In the last few years, however, environmentalism has gained national attention. Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth was a huge commercial and critical success. Sales of Toyota’s “green” Prius have stayed high, despite a slow auto market overall. The popularity of organic goods, such as organic coffee, steadily continues to grow. Even Wal*Mart now offers “earth friendly shopping." | | | While green consumerism has made “environmentally friendly” a trendy catchphrase, it is up for debate whether it is actually that, well, environmentally friendly. Part of the problem is that the earth isn’t just harmed by certain kinds of consumption; it is harmed by heavy consumption of any product. While environmentally-friendly products may well be better for the environment than other items, they’re still much worse than buying no product at all. For example, it’s all well and good to get an energy-saving television, but even the most energy-efficient appliances use some energy (even when turned off). Moreover, in a culture of conspicuous consumption, old “green” products must continuously be thrown out so that new ones can be consumed. The earth is helped very little by a landfill that’s filled with couches made from organic cotton. | |
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- Well, if all they were made from was organic cotton, they would biodegrade, and they would do some good to the earth by making topsoil.
| | | Harnessing Conspicuous Consumption
So whatever is the environmental movement to do? If green consumerism is not enough to stop global warming and other environmental disasters, how can the environmental movement appeal to a world fixated on conspicuous consumption? What the environmental movement needs to do is channel the forces Veblen describes to its own ends. | | | Conspicuous leisure is a plausible alternative not just because it can appeal to people mired in a culture of conspicuous waste. It also is familiar: people have been practicing conspicuous leisure for centuries. Environmentalists need not create a new form of conspicuous waste out of whole cloth, but instead put increasing focus on an already-existing form of waste. Veblen notes that retrogression is easier to achieve than progression (86). Since conspicuous leisure is already recognizable to people, it won’t be difficult for them to revert back to it. | |
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- But work isn't leisure. To be seen working isn't going to catch on, for precisely the reasons Veblen gave. You've sensitively understood one of his subsidiary points while utterly mangling his central thesis.
| | | Changing the focus from conspicuous consumption of goods to conspicuous consumption of time may not seem like a large change, but even seemingly small changes in the structure can have far-reaching effects (88). And, granted, hordes of people working in community gardens likely won't, on its own, eliminate global warming any more than hordes of people buying organic produce will. But in order to save the environment, the change in behavior away from consumptions of goods is a necessary one. At the very least, conspicuous leisure is a pretty good start.
*I don't mean to imply that conspicuous leisure ever left popular consciousness, but rather that it has taken a backseat to other forms of conspicuous consumption. | |
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- But you don't seem to have registered that abstention from labor is not achieved by laboring.
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