"Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I covet my neighbors' goods
and I have engaged in conspicuous consumption numerous times.
Here's a partial list of the things I've needed since
my last confession: A notebook computer, a cell phone for me,
cell phones for my two daughters, an SUV would be nice but I'll
settle for a new station wagon, a DVD player, a leather jacket,
a pair of those weird Nike Shox Nz shoes with the springs in the
heels, a bumper pool table and a foosball table for the basement
rec room.
"I should have a PDA too. I know I'd be a lot more organized
if I had a Palm Pilot. And, oh, yeah, how about all the fancy
electronic equipment for a home theater?
"I've already picked up a few of these things -- but not the
big ticket items. (Maybe if I pray harder, God will help me with
those?) The ache I feel is more than 'want.' I need this
stuff, Father. People like me already own stuff like this. Every
time I turn on my TV I'm reminded of what I don't have. Sure,
sooner or later most of this stuff will end up in the Prairie
View landfill south of town. And we both know I'll just want more.
As Miss Piggy would say, 'More is more.'"
It'll be a blue moon before any priest hears a confession like
that from me or anyone else. Catholics may have a long tradition
of feeling guilty about lust for people, but lust for things is
another matter. We are good Americans. We want just as much --
or more -- as the next guy, and we don't feel the slightest twinge
about it. Even bishops who ride around in BMWs and live in opulent
mansions do not readily embrace the simple life. The Gospel says
it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, but most Americans
are willing to take that gamble.
"After all, what is the American Dream?" Notre Dame economist
Charles Wilber asks rhetorically. "To get ahead. Or to get your
children ahead. And what does that mean? It doesn't mean living
more simply. Typically, it's translated into getting a better
house, a better car, better clothes, better health care -- all
the things that money buys, none of which are very simple."
But at what point does the drive to acquire become a bad thing?
And are we there yet? Catholic social teaching cites three instances
in which excessive consumption is immoral, says Wilber, who played
a major role in drafting the U.S. bishops' 1986 pastoral letter
on the economy. Catholic social teaching considers excessive consumption
morally questionable when other individuals or nations are in
need, when the environment is threatened or when it becomes the
primary goal of life.
Using that standard, one could make the case without too much
difficulty that, as a nation, we are guilty as charged on all
three counts. This is, after all, the country with bumper stickers
reading "The Guy Who Dies With The Most Toys At The End, Wins"
and "I Live to Shop."
On the matter of consumption, however, we are apparently damned
if we do and damned if we don't. On the one hand, we should consume
less for all the Catholic social teaching reasons. On the other
hand, with the stock market tumbling, companies laying off workers,
endowments plummeting and everyone cutting back, we are told we
need to consume more. With a sputtering economy, can we lower
consumption? Are there reasons we should try? The answers, as
usual, tend toward gray.
Notre Dame Professor of Economics Amitava Dutt illustrates the
point: "Although higher consumption may seem unethical," he says,
"when demand is not high enough, as is the case now, it can be
argued legitimately that higher consumption actually may help
everyone. By creating demand, we create jobs, raising income,
helping the poor not only in this country but perhaps in poorer
countries where people may be producing these goods.
"On the other hand," Dutt reverses, "increased consumption may
not be beneficial if people go into debt to finance it. If debt
burden grows, this shifts income distribution from the poor to
the rich, and therefore demand might go down because the rich
typically consume less of a percentage of their total income.
Also," he points out, "the luxury items that the rich consume
generally are not produced in poor countries, so poor nations
are not likely to benefit."
In any attempt to determine the ethics of consumption, Dutt
says it's useful to consider the most basic question: What is
the point of all the binge buying? What is the rabbit we're all
chasing? The classic answer is "happiness." But studies have shown
that after a certain point consumption does not yield happiness.
In fact, it may make us unhappy, Dutt says.
Economist Richard Easterlin of the University of Southern California
found that once basic needs are met, economic growth does not
seem to improve overall welfare. Various studies have found that
people report being happy when they are "ahead" of someone else.
Our position relative to others is the driving force for this
"happiness," if indeed that is what it is.
"I may want a bigger house," Dutt explains, "but then if everyone
has a bigger house, it no longer has value. And so we are right
back where we started, still unhappy." It comes as no surprise,
then, that many Americans complain they are on a "work-spend/work
more-spend more" treadmill.
We do, in fact, have more today than ever, but lured on by the
advertising media, we want even more. The explosion of closet
space in new housing is one tiny but telltale sign. I once lived
in a house that was built in 1938. Typical of homes of that era,
it had two bedrooms and two narrow closets. Compare that with
today's "McMansions," which commonly feature walk-in closets that
rival the size of either bedroom in my 1938 house.
For all that prosperity, we don't seem that happy.
Boston College economist Juliet Schorr reports that 39 percent
of those who earn between $50,000 and $100,000 and 27 percent
of those who earn more than $100,000 say they cannot buy everything
they need. We may live in the richest society on the planet, but
we are also the most materially dissatisfied, she says.
Still, most of us cling to the idea that greater consumption
means greater happiness. Eugene Halton, however, argues that the
consumption culture enslaves the unwary -- which is most of us
-- by using happiness in "bait-and-switch" tactics. In all of
its enticements, consumer culture suggests happiness but really
offers pleasure, the Notre Dame sociology professor says. "Yet
happiness is something other than pleasure," he points out. "Basically
happiness is social, the way we relate to people, the way we love
our family, friends and neighbors.
"Consumer culture offers pseudo-relationships in a pseudo-society,"
he asserts. "If you buy this car, you can have a relationship
with a beautiful woman like the one in the commercial. If you
buy this brand of clothing, people will be impressed with you.
We're 'brain-rinsed,' a kinder, gentler form of brainwashing,
to believe this."
One of the effects of the consumer culture, Halton argues, has
been a reduction of awareness, of connection to the real world.
Once upon a time people socialized by interacting, playing cards,
chatting. Now, more than likely, they sit together and silently
watch a TV program, ironically, sometimes of people having conversations.
"The end product of all this is what I call 'Big Zombie,' the
ultimate couch potato, devoid of human emotions, substituting
virtual experiences for the real thing," he says. "Big Zombie
lives in his big, fat McMansion, drives his big SUV and sits sedated
on the couch pressing buttons to get further reinforcement of
that consumption self. That to me is the ultimate diminution of
consciousness."
Last fall, in his core course, "Making the Modern Material World,"
Halton had his students play a game that demonstrates just how
deeply ingrained consumer culture is in our psyche, especially
among young people. He gave each student a stack of colored Post-it
notes and then paired them off. The pairs were told to tag any
brand they recognized on the other person. An incorrect guess
resulted in a Post-it on the forehead. Within a few minutes the
18 students were awash in colored tags, while Halton and I were
among the few sporting colored paper on our foreheads. In an impressive
display of consumer IQ, the students were able to identify just
about everything they saw.
As another consciousness-raising exercise to demonstrate the
strength and pervasiveness of consumer culture, Halton asked his
class not to shop on the day after Thanksgiving, which traditionally
begins the Christmas buying orgy. A number of students described
the incredulity and annoyance directed at them by friends and
family when they declined to take part in the buying ritual. Consuming
has become our identity, and if we don't do it at the appropriate
time, to the appropriate (excessive) degree, something must be
wrong.
Competitive spending -- keeping up with the Joneses -- has long
been a hallmark of American society. It is, after all, the turbocharged
engine that drives the economy to the promised land of Prosperity.
But the difference today, Boston College's Schorr asserts, is
that the Joneses no longer live next door. They live in that mansion
on MTV's Cribs or in the chateau on Joe Millionaire.
The luxurious lifestyle as seen on TV is now the standard for
rich and poor alike.
The result, some argue, is a bad case of "affluenza," defined
in the book and PBS documentary of the same name by John
de Graaf as "an epidemic of stress, overwork, waste and indebtedness
caused by a dogged pursuit of the American Dream." One telling
symptom of people living above their means is that the average
credit card balance for a U.S. household is $7,500, up from less
than $3,000 in 1990. On average, Americans pay more than $1,000
per year in interest and fees. Meanwhile, last year 1.3 million
Americans declared bankruptcy.
I understand how easy it is to slide down that slope. Our consumer
culture keeps fanning the flames of desire, and the banks do their
best to remove the obstacles to satisfying those desires. At least
three times a week I receive a letter from yet another bank inviting
me to add a VISA, Discover or Mastercard to my already bulging
deck. The cards typically have a credit limit between $5,000 and
$20,000. If I had accepted all of the past year's invitations
and played those cards to the max, in theory I could be $720,000
in debt right now. For the most part, I have resisted the temptation.
Not as much as I wish, but more than 1.3 million of my fellow
affluenza-afflicted Americans.
Since newspapers, television, radio and others forms of communication
are global, consumer culture is taking root in the most foreign
soil. Now everyone in sight of a TV wants the same stuff. Even
China, the last bastion of communism, this past January launched
Everyone Wins, described in press reports as "a TV quiz
show that markets the enthusiasm of greed to the masses." The
program is, perhaps, part of former President Jiang Zemin's promised
strategy to raise China's 1.3 billion people to a middle-class
lifestyle by 2020. Shopping malls are sprouting in Shanghai and
elsewhere in the country. And while raising the lot of the average
Chinese is a good thing, the untempered embrace of consumer culture
is worrisome.
"When we export our materialist consumption-maximizing free
market system, we encourage people in other cultures to emulate
our worst (ecologically speaking) habits," asserts ND Professor
of Psychology George Howard. His newest book, How Should I
Live My Life?, considers the psychological dimensions of
over-consumption and its effect on the environment.
Indeed, imagine the impact of millions of Chinese in their SUVs
stuck in a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam on the road from Beijing
to Shanghai. The exaggerated scene may not be as far-fetched as
it sounds. "Orange County," a new housing development featuring
5,000-square-foot California-style homes with all the amenities,
including SUVs in the driveways, has sprouted this year north
of Beijing. Meanwhile, two six-lane highways have been built nearby.
"Chinese people like the image of the American lifestyle," real
estate developer Weighdoon Yang, vice president of SinoCEA, has
said.
The problem, bluntly put, is that we -- 6 percent of the world's
population -- are using 35 percent of the world's resources, and
everyone else wants to catch up to us. But we live in a world
of finite resources, and there is no way the planet will allow
that. So what are we going to do about it? Or do we continue to
disregard Aldous Huxley's admonition, "Facts do not cease to be
facts even because they are ignored"?
Our response to a challenge is determined by the ideas that
shape our beliefs. Unfortunately, when it comes to consumerism,
the social sciences have not been helpful in this regard, Howard
asserts. To our collective detriment, he says, virtually all the
behavioral disciplines have borrowed the idea from economic theory
that organisms "maximize utility." "It's as if the social sciences
are determined to convince human beings that the 'winners' in
life are those who die with the largest bank accounts, those who
have consumed the most pleasurable experiences and those who have
the largest number of offspring."
We believe that the only way to achieve a satisfying life is
by "maximizing our individual goods." However, in our mad rush
to buy things, social scientists tell us we're really trying to
get happiness, security and freedom. That's what the "haves" have
and the "have-nots" want. But what if there were another way to
get those goods? An environmentally friendlier way that eliminates
the stress of overwork?
The Voluntary Simplicity Movement thinks it has the answer.
The ideal of this diffuse movement is to scale back, slow down
and enjoy life: Get out of debt, live below your means, cut back
on work, do the things you really want to do. Some folks are even
able to retire early. To live a life of frugal luxury, they say,
you need to be clear about what you really need and be
happy with what you have. The movement is not about asceticism
nor is it about buying only cheap goods, followers say. It's about
doing/having/being more with less.
Scores of books, magazines, websites and study circles now advise
people on how to simplify their lifestyles. There's even The
Complete Idiot's Guide to Simple Living, part of the popular
simplified "how to" series, which shows just how mainstream the
movement has become.
Boston College economist Schorr says the voluntary simplicity
gang tends to be white, middle class, college-educated, with no
children at home. Often they're folks who have partaken heartily
at the table of consumerism -- perhaps with too much gusto. They've
often swallowed sizable credit card debt, which has left a bad
taste in their mouth and taken away their urge to splurge.
One of the primary benefits of "downshifting," VSers say, is
personal freedom. By cutting back on spending and work, they gain
the time and freedom to pursue other satisfying goals. For Dr.
Peter J. Dalum '68 and his wife, Pat, who downshifted temporarily,
it was the freedom to leave the United States for a two-year volunteer
stint with the Catholic Medical Mission Board in Malawi, Africa.
In preparing for the service commitment, the couple sold their
house and two cars and auctioned off most of their personal possessions.
"One might consider this to be a radical upheaval in one's life,"
Dalum says, "but my wife and I found it to be extremely therapeutic."
Downshifters insist they don't deny themselves. They spend their
money strategically and opt for the less expensive alternative
whenever possible. Vicki Robin is the president of The New Road
Map Foundation, an organization dedicated to advancing voluntary
simplicity, and the co-author of Your Money or Your Life,
the movement's founding "bible," which outlines her nine-step
program to "live more with less." Robin says she lives comfortably
on $19,000 a year.
Until now the movement has been a largely unorganized, diffuse
network of like-minded people. However, if it is to have a transforming
effect on society it must enter the political arena and move beyond
personal lifestyle issues and shift to emphasizing the environment
and social justice, write Notre Dame sociologist Joseph Rumbo
and Stephen Zavestoski '94, an assistant professor of sociology
at the University of San Francisco.
It appears, in fact, that the movement is about to take that
next step. The Simplicity Forum, an alliance of about 55 leaders,
has announced plans for Take Back Your Time Day: October 24,
2003. For the event, modeled after the first Earth Day in
1970, organizers will encourage people to take all or part of
the day off work to attend nationwide teach-ins and public events
that focus on the epidemic of stress and overwork felt by many
Americans and its harmful effects on health, family and community.
Organizers see this as the first step in a campaign to transform
the dominant culture to a "simplicity friendly" society.
Affluenza author John de Graaf says the Simplicity
Forum chose the take-back-your-time theme because it realized
that overworked Americans are concerned about the issue, even
if they're not yet into simplicity. "Everyone complains about
never having enough time to do what they want. We understand that
we just can't tell people this is about sacrifice. We want to
show that there is something to be gained from cutting back and
simplifying one's life."
As soon as people begin to look at the issue, the link with
wasteful consumption becomes apparent, he says. "We consume more
throwaways and convenience food items for the simple reason we
are in a hurry."
But with an economy on the skids and many Americans fearful
of losing their jobs, is this the right message at the wrong time?
"We want to persuade people that this is precisely the
time when this sort of thing is most important," de Graaf says.
Economically, he notes, "it would be better for more people to
work less, sharing jobs, than for a few to work large amounts
of overtime." De Graaf points out that in 1933, at the height
of the Depression, the U.S. Senate passed a bill limiting the
U.S. work week to 30 hours, for precisely this reason. While the
bill never became law because the Roosevelt administration withdrew
its support, he says, the fact that the Senate passed the bill
recognizes the validity of the approach.
Government can do a great deal to make society more simplicity
friendly, de Graaf argues. "For instance, why not reward businesses
through tax incentives, so instead of laying off people and making
their remaining workforce work overtime, they have their employees
share the work?"
The Simplicity Movement leader cites this as an example of the
type of issue that should be explored in a bipartisan way. "Our
society has made producing and consuming the ultimate values in
life at the expense of other values that ought to be given consideration,"
de Graaf says. "Our life is out of balance. The national dialogue
needs to begin."
* * *
J ohn Monczunski is an associate editor of this magazine.
July 2003
