Giving Stuff Up

Part of this tension comes from what’s called the ‘tragedy of the commons’ – the resistance people have to changing their behaviour for the greater good when they see that so many others are not. This applies to overfishing, the radical deforestation of tropical rainforests, the mining and export of brown (or in fact any) coal, inefficient irrigation practices, wasteful energy resource use and so on.

 

The reason why it is so hard for people to change these behaviours is that these behaviours have, over the past 50 years in particular, become deeply enmeshed with our sense of identity. Instead of buying things because they meet our needs (as we did in the 50s), we now buy things because they shape our understanding of ‘who we are’. Although people in modern democracies have long been encouraged to aspire to increased social status and financial wealth, it is much more recently that the conspicuous consumption of desirable resources has become such an integral marker of success.

 

The problem is that ever since most of the ‘golden billion’ (the billion of us who live in the developed world and whose material needs are well and truly met) grew to accept this belief system, we have been on a fast track to ill-health, unhappiness and ultimately, it can be argued, to our own demise.

 

Beyond a certain point where our material needs are met, not only does having more money not make us happier (the ‘happiness index’ has not moved despite large increases in income and GDPs), but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it drives discontent and decreases wellbeing. We want a newer, bigger, smaller, faster, shinier, silkier, flashier this or that – we buy it, gain a few precious moments of satisfaction, until the next desire takes root, driving the next acquisition, forcing us to work longer hours and endure greater stress. If we thought that money would make us free, we were gravely mistaken.

 

But before we’re accused of wanting everyone to live in caves and barter with mulberries, this is not to say that we shouldn’t be rewarded with the opportunity to earn more money if we have worked hard, built up a strong business or studied for many years, that we shouldn’t be able to buy the things we deem necessary, or that we could or should live in perfect equality. What our reading suggests is that the most important factor in our overall wellbeing is not the level of wealth itself, but the level of inequality in our society. Few would argue against equality of opportunity, but do we really believe in it?

 

In The Spirit Level by R. Wilkinson and K. Pickett, 2009 (an in-depth study of societies with lesser or greater inequality), we see that countries such as Singapore, the USA or Portugal where the richest 20% of people are almost 10 times wealthier than the poorest 20% very often have significantly greater health and social problems than countries with less inequality, such as Japan, Finland or Norway where the richest 20% are just over 4 times wealthier than the poorest 20%. In short, countries with the greatest inequality repeatedly show marked negative impacts on a full range of health and social problems including lower life expectancy, less chance for social mobility, lower levels of trust in a community, increased rates of infant mortality, increased obesity, more teenage births, more homicides, higher imprisonment rates, and up to five times higher rates of mental illness – across the whole population.

 

In short, greater income inequality is driving even greater over-consumption, contributing to more ill-health, reducing our physical, mental and social wellbeing, and speeding up the destruction of the environment on which we depend for survival.

 

Those of us who are ‘bright greens’ and who see continued but environmentally ‘aware’ economic growth as the way forward may or may not find some of these ideas challenging. It is obviously very comforting to believe that we can keep growing, keep consuming and keep developing, as long as we make ‘environmentally responsible’ choices where we can.

 

Those of us who are ‘deep greens’, while agreeing with the idea of making environmentally responsible choices, would probably take it further to include a more ‘steady state’ economy, based on an ethic of conservation and the targeted redistribution of wealth as the more pragmatic way to go. As the earth’s resources are finite, it makes sense to conserve what we have, to tackle poverty by building a less unequal society, while reducing the excesses of a free-market economy that has started to chase its own tail.

 

No one wants to see massive job losses and the ‘ruining of the economy’ but perhaps what we do want to see is less of the ‘tinkering around the edges’ and ‘greenwash’ that passes for environmentally conscious business and governance under our existing paradigm of unbridled growth. Perhaps what we do want to see is a true green revolution on a grand scale – where the old ‘fast growth and consumerism on cheap dirty energy’ system is phased out and a new ‘steady state of conservation on clean renewable energy’ system is phased in. And perhaps the people who govern us and run our businesses need to hear it from us that that’s what we want.

 

Which leads us back to where we started. Whether by reading Oliver James’ Affluenza, Wilkinson and Pickett’s The Spirit Level, Spratt and Sutton’s Climate Code Red, Rob Hopkins The Transition Handbook, Thomas Friedman’s Hot Flat and Crowded, Clive Hamilton’s Requiem for a Species, The Dalai Lama’s The Art of Happiness, Martin Seligman’s Positive Psychology, Tim Flannery’s Now or Never, Jared Diamond’s Collapse, or Fritjof Capra’s The Turning Point – there is a converging consensus of opinion (across a full spectrum of disciplines) that many of our current values, beliefs and behaviours are no longer serving us well.

 

Consumerism (or ‘getting more stuff’) might satisfy desire for a time, but research shows that what really makes us happy is the quality of our interpersonal relationships (spending time with friends and family), whether we feel valuable and valued (using our skills to make a contribution to the world through work or volunteering) and whether we feel part of a broader community (like the wider support we get from sport, recreation, shared passions or a spiritual community). And just in case you’re the kind of person who thinks ‘happiness’ is too subjective an aim to take seriously, consider the more objective measure of ‘increased life expectancy’. They’re inextricably linked.

 

The Dalai Lama put it well when he said that it is easier to say no to some of life’s ‘pleasures’, when you know that it is taking you closer to a more lasting form of happiness and contentment. It’s really not about ‘giving stuff up’ – we’re aiming for longer healthier lives and actual happiness.