Message-ID: <36517683.D5EA55AF@netlink.com.au>
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 00:13:39 +1100
From: rc&am <rcollins@netlink.com.au>
Reply-To: rcollins@netlink.com.au
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To: PROGRESSIVE POPULATION NETWORK <ppn@csf.colorado.edu>
Subject: overconsumption v overpopulation?
References: <364E395B.B6832EA6@jps.net>
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Ted Toal wrote:

> Now I'm sure you're thinking,
>
> there he goes again, calling for reducing poor population instead of calling
> for reducing rich consumption.  I'll say it again, BOTH need to be done.
>
> Reducing consumption is a whole other topic.  How do you do it fairly?  So many
>
> people in the U.S. live marginally as it is.

ted,

i was not arguing through any version of reduced consumption versus reduced
population.  to acknowledge that consumption rates are vastly different, even
within the same country is crucial, as you have done.  but, my arguments have not
been to counterpose the two strategies. rather, i would think that concepts of
consumption - like those of production, technology, etc. - are being too often used
in an abstract sense without due consideration given to the qualitative - as
distinct from quantitative - differences that pertain to different historical
systems of production, consumption and so forth.

like you, i like technology.  i like it because it has the potential to lessen the
amount of work time and drudgery associated with living.  but, i am am forced to
acknowledge that technology today is not driven by - or indeed organised with the
express purpose of - lessening work time and drudgery.  in fact, today, increases
in technology go hand in hand with global increases in work time and increases in
misery precisely because technology - and technological innovations - are driven by
the imperatives of profit maximization, the minimization of labour costs through
unemployment, and similar imperatives.  as a parenthesis, this is why unemployment
increases at the same time as increases in time worked by the employed.

i also look forward to an abundant world.  but abundance, as you know, is not the
same thing as overconsumption.  similarly, impoverishment does not flow from
scarcity.  consumption - or, more accurately, decisions made about what should or
can be consumed - is not determined by population numbers in the strict sense.
population numbers only figure in as a consideration of potential or actual markets
when it comes to consumption.  otherwise they figure as potential labour.  all else
is redundant.

the economic crises of the last century have been more or less crises of
overproduction or underconsumption.  there is some debate over whether this is a
cause or effect of some other process, and i tend to side with the latter view, but
the point remains that these crises are not crises of shortage, or crises of
abundance - rather, they are a crisis brought on by the generalised failure of
commodities already produced to find 'a buyer' sufficient to return both labour
costs and a rising rate of profit..

this is a lengthy discussion and it has been crudely put here, but it does seem to
me to suggest in no uncertain terms that the word 'consumption' is not equivalent
with needs or enjoyment.  moreover, it also points to the fact that decisions about
what to produce are not driven by needs or enjoyment, but whether or not they can
be sold at a sufficient rate. this is why we have seen the appalling case in the
past of the australian govt. dumping 'surplus' wheat: because it makes more sense
for them in the appalling terms of today's rationality to take it off the market
and maintain a certain price for wheat rather than give it to those who starve.
this is also why the australian govt recently went on the rampage against a us
decision to step up food aid to Indonesia, since the govt here thought this would
undermine the austn market in indonesia for food products!

lastly, it also points to the fact that decisions about how things are produced are
not determined by the social, environmental or health impacts of such processes,
but principally about whether or not such processes are cheaper, faster, etc. in
order to maximize the proportion which goes to profits.  there are ways of
increasing the productivity of soils for example which is not unhealthy or socially
destructive, but these are not put into large scale use because of the power of
companies like monsanto and others who seek to dominate particular product markets
by creating an inexorable link between crop and pesticide (i'm thinking of the soy
bean example here).  these things are likely to cause more long term damage to the
health of the environment (including ourselves) than short-term increases in
population numbers, which look set to decline into the next century in any case.

angela