Conspicuous Consumption and the Environmental Movement

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

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."

The Taste of Eco-Friendliness

While the increased popularity of eco-friendly products may at first seem to herald a new way of living, in actuality “green consumerism” can be likened more readily to a change in taste than a change in lifestyle. Buying environmentally-friendly products requires no significant lifestyle change, but is an effective way to use taste to signal one's class.

In his chapter on “Pecuniary Canons of Taste,” Veblen notes that the most "tasteful" objects are those that have added expense, but no added usefulness (50). That description fits many eco-friendly products perfectly. Organic towels, for example, cost more than five times as much as non-organic towels, but they don’t soak up water any better.

Failings of Eco-Friendly Products

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.

• 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.

Veblen notes that, while institutions are reluctant to change, they sometimes must adapt to external circumstances (83, 84). Usually, that change is in response to an economic stimulus (85, 86). Such a stimulus is on the horizon, if it is not here already. With a rise in the cost of natural gas, it is becoming increasingly expensive to heat one’s home. The world’s water supply is shrinking, which will cause increased food and water costs. And the cost of gas has risen dramatically in the last few years. While Americans have faced some of these economic pressures before, the costs have always been temporary. This time it seems that the high prices may be here to stay. The time is right for the environmental movement to bring about institutional change.

People will shrink from any scheme of life that is alien to them (89). Thus, any change will need to feel as familiar as possible in order to find acceptance. Luckily, there is a familiar form of conspicuous consumption the environmental movement can attempt to bring back*: the wasting of time.

Conspicuous leisure has all of the elements it needs to be as successful as conspicuous consumption of goods (while having the added bonus of relying less on quickly-diminishing natural resources). For example, with conspicuous leisure people are able to display their wealth through how much time they can afford to waste, instead of how many items they can buy. Community gardening, washing dishes by hand, and ironing shirts (instead of dry cleaning them) all take time, and are not particularly productive (as evidenced by the fact that there is a less time-consuming alternative to all three activities).

Conspicuous leisure also allows for hierarchies of taste, since how you spend your time is as much of a signal of your wealth as the fact that you spent it at all. Just as knowing to buy organic sheets is a marker of class, so, too, can it be a marker of class to wash those sheets by hand.

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.

• 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.

• • I was trying to suggest not that the environmental movement stress a different kind of work, but an activity more along the lines of sports (not work, and a conspicuously useless activity). I think my example of washing things by hand was a poor one which confused the issue, but I still think working in community gardens can be likened to sports. It's not really all that useful (you can't produce enough food to feed yourself in a community garden in which you labor for a couple of hours after work every day). Does the fact that something is produced still make it too useful? Can anyone think of an example of an environmental activity that is straight up leisure?

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.

• But you don't seem to have registered that abstention from labor is not achieved by laboring.