No one seems willing to state the obvious: consumer society itself is unsustainable, not just ecologically however economicallyJust as it was questioned to, the nation shopped till it dropped. And how it has dropped, into a double-dip recession the like of which has not been seen for 50 years. Immediately, economists argue that demand must be stimulated. Human beings demand to feel confident about buying stuff again. Banks demand to feel confident about lending them the money to do so. Cameron may bluster about how the coalition has to pick up the pieces after an unsustainable boom. However he seems utterly unable to know what a paradoxical message he is delivering. He wants human beings to relax and commence spending. However he also insists that it was relaxing and spending that got the economy into this mess. Meanwhile, no one seems willing to state the obvious: that it’s consumer society itself that is unsustainable, not just ecologically however economically.Immediately, I like stuff as much as the following woman. I have a abundance of stuff. And I don’t intellect paying human beings for the effort they have expended in making that stuff. However what I find extraordinary is that those human beings – the producers – have been for a extended age immediately considered much less vital than the consumers. And the consumers are not kings, either. The kings are the human beings who constitute desire, by imbuing objects with desirability, not the human beings who constitute the objects.Elizabeth Taylor apparently made more money from flogging “her” perfume, White Diamonds, than she did from all of her acting employment place together. Again, I like perfume. However I know that the money I spend on fragrant liquid isn’t really buying me fragrant liquid. That’s just a small part of what I’m buying. Mainly, I’m buying something I don’t desire (or like to reckon I don’t desire) – a complicated cocktail of marketing myth-making called branding. Strip branding away from all sorts of products, and they are (supposedly) virtually worthless: the raw materials and the primary labour can be bought at a fraction of the value of the assembled desirable body. An empty perfume bottle is junk, no affair how attractive it is. The extravagant packet it came in was junk from the minute the bottle was sprung from it. However, oh, how much nicer, how more lucrative it is to design packaging for a living, or sign up celebrities to sponsor things, or employment in the media, rather than in manufacturing.The human beings who employment in “creative industries” are those who “constitute” demand. We all demand aliment, clothes, shelter, fuel, technology, transport. The demand is there, always, and there’s no fantastic demand to “stimulate it”. Yet human beings who do the basics – grow, prepare and serve aliment, harvest cotton or run up clothes, build houses, go down mines, assemble iPods or propel trains – are often the ones who are least able to acquire stuff, once all the expensive extras have been magicked up by the consultants, the designers and advertising gurus.The thought of globalisation was that all that basic employment could be done in other countries, while in Britain everyone concentrated on providing the marketing expertise. However what has that really resulted in? Huge demand for welfare, as human beings without these skills in modern alchemy get locked outside of the jobs market; a middle class that feels insecure and debt-ridden, immediately that housing has stopped being a golden goose, and an untouchable super-rich so detached from reality that they don’t much know why they are resented.Our leaders encircling the earth are fond of declaring that strong economies are all about confidence. At the commence of the crash, both George Bush and Gordon Brown made their own statements about the insubstantiality of economic success and failure, as if this was something marvellous, not something ludicrous. Yet while it’s a truism that markets are about confidence, much less attention is paid to what exactly it is that bull markets are confident about, and bear markets are wary of.Money is a method of reward. The human beings who constitute and control demand reward themselves at the times when labour and production can be bought most cheaply. Then, when they’ve wrung every penny outside of their victims, their “confidence” collapses. They withdraw, and let the absolute economy, governed by absolute needs, recover enough for them to go in again to manipulate and speculate. It’s simple to see why they are so fond of their system. It’s also simple to see why they get away with it.Money is a system of punishment, also. Capture the feckless poor, spending all their money on flat-screen tellies and booze. Fantastic! Give them loads more money! Let them flood Currys! Let them flood Oddbins with demand for nice wine that doesn’t give you a hangover! These guys can’t hang on to their money. Give them lots, since in five minutes it’ll be back in the hands of the hardworking denizens of the retail and manufacturing industries. Hurrah!Somehow, however, it doesn’t employment that path. Liz Taylor’s designation can flog perfume, so that’s worth rewarding. However the human beings who acquire perfume just since it’s got Taylor’s designation on it – they’re fools, who deserve to be parted from their money. They are worthless – they don’t much have a excellent designation. They probably call their children things like White Diamonds. Exploiters are admirable and clever. The exploited are contemptible and stupid. How can it be admirable and clever to exploit such vulnerable scraps of humanity?Our society’s values are skewed. The incorrect things are considered vital. Every decent person despises filth and squalor, for example. Living in such conditions is considered as a moral failure at best, a mental illness at worst. Yet the human beings who clean up our dirty, filthy earth are the lowest of the low, exceptionally when it comes to pay and conditions. Those who constitute the demand that is really just a compulsion to own and consume are rewarded. Those who merely meet the demand that is always there are punished.Certain, “things” are vital. Functionality is vital. Beauty is vital. Innovation is vital. However the demand to “stimulate demand” method that it’s also “vital” to discard things, throw them away, get fresh ones. That’s the growth that politicians wish for a giveback to, much as they berate human beings for doing it in the first place.Raw materials and basic services demand to be valued more, manufacturing skill needs to be valued more and, oddly, “things” demand to be valued more. In a absolute economy that conserves, mends and cleans things, that buys expensive items since they have absolute value and will at the end, not since there’s a phenomenal marketing campaign behind them, there are satisfying and respected jobs. However it will capture a huge philosophical shift to constitute it happen.The CEO of the beleaguered Lloyds Banking Collection, Antonio Horta-Osorio, admitted this week that British banking was in a “deep crisis” of confidence and trust. Frankly, when these guys commence feeling on top of the earth again, it’ll be terrible news. It will mean that the merry-go-round has been cranked up again, and that another opportunity for positive alter has been squandered.Consumer spendingRecessionEconomic growth (GDP)EconomicsDavid CameronUS economic growth and recessionEconomic policyDeborah Orrguardian.co.uk © 2012 Twitter News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Employ of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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