Insatiable Consumption

1. Insatiable Consumption:
The Historical Roots of the Growth Imperative and Its Implications on Our
Future










Eric Lin
Honors Thesis
Honors 499P
Advisor: James Boyce

2. Eric Lin
499P
Chapter 1
Consumption and Human Well-Being

Shopping malls are now tourist attractions; fun with friends usually requires spending
money for movies, food, drinks, Celtics tickets, or more shopping. There are support
groups for shopaholics. Some of us even trot the globe to shop in different cities; some
tour books even specialize in helping to plan overseas shopping sprees. Four billion
square feet of American lands are now shopping centers, about 14.8 square feet per
person.i We can also shop online at our computers, through phone lines at home from
mail-order catalogues. It seems that market activity is involved in almost every aspect of
our lives. Dating lines are set up for matchmaking, there are also resorts and group trips
set up to be conducive for matchmaking, so love is even commodified. Our lives are
lived inside of the market, and it is important to understand how we got into such a
predicament, so that we can hope to change the situation. The results of our
consumption fetish are debt, Americans on average carry debt equal to 18% of their
disposable income.ii Dissatisfaction, Americans have not been significantly happier
since 1947 or 1957 despite enormous increases in the availability, affordability and
consumption of consumer products.iii Environmental degradation, production of goods
for the market pollutes our air, water, and food while rapidly depleting natural resources.
Over-fishing and unsustainable agricultural practices have caused a 7-8% decline in the
production of both since the mid to late 80’s.iv Global energy use has increased more
than fourfold since 1950.v Chlorinated chemical use in the past 50 years has been
linked to a 50% decrease in average sperm count.vi Increased emissions of greenhouse

3. gases can, if left unchecked, cause a rise in average surface air temperature of 3.5
degree Fahrenheit resulting in dramatic climate changes destroying natural habitats,
coastal flooding and major agricultural disruption worldwide.vii These problems are real,
and the current trends suggest that these problems will be exacerbated by our
imperatives for economic growth and increasing consumption.

We consume to the point of threatening the physical world largely because we believe
that our consumption is linked closely to our happiness and human well-being. This
connection is at first obvious, we consume in order to live. A certain level of
consumption is a necessity for life, this is not contested, and the effects of poverty in the
U.S. and around the world show us how a certain level of consumption is needed for a
fulfilling life free from hunger, sickness, and unnecessary environmental stress. Higher
levels of consumption and wealth in a society are also linked to higher tendency for
democracy and freedoms. Once these basic essentials are met, however, the motives
of our continued upward push for consumption are no longer so easily linked to absolute
happiness and human well-being. Keynes separates our consumption into two
categories, “those needs which are absolute in the sense that we feel them whatever
the situation of our fellow human beings may be, and those which are relative only in
that their satisfaction lifts us above, makes us feel superior to, our fellows.”viii Keynes
would say that the former class of consumption can be easily sated, but the nature of
the latter class of consumption decisions is insatiable. We consume to live, this is true,
but beyond this, Keynes says we only consume to differentiate ourselves from those we
deem lower class by emulating the higher classes.

4. This assumption can be disputed. The accessibility of certain household appliances, as
foreseen by Gary Becker, did lead to an enormous increase in the opportunities
available to women. These appliances do not serve to sustain life, however a strong
case can be made for the improvement of opportunities experienced by women as a
result. It is what is done with the increased time that is the issue. For many women the
extra time was used to enter the labor force to become more financially independent.
This is a positive step but the dark side is that the same paths are followed into
consumer fetishism. Whether it is fair or not to classify all goods and services not
directly involved in sustaining life as wasteful in the Veblenian sense,ix John Stuart Mills
was right when he said, “it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made
have lightened the day’s toil of any human being.”x These women took the time saved
by household appliances and spent all of it, if not more in market work for wages. We
cannot classify these goods and services so neatly, but it is apparent that most
consumption not directly sustaining life is related somehow to a relative happiness and
not an intrinsic absolute happiness.

Relative happiness is felt when we assess our own worth by comparing ourselves to
reference groups, and find ourselves in a favorable position. There is a link between our
identity and the things we own that will be explored in more depth later. These groups
are not always based upon people in our own socioeconomic class; often they are
composed of our entire bank of social contacts including friends, relatives, co-workers,
colleagues, and our media equivalents. As we seek to improve ourselves, to reach our

5. full potentials, we constantly raise the bar by placing our reference groups higher and
higher, well out of our immediate ability to conform.xi This is especially true when our
reference groups extend to include those characters we see in movies and on TV.
Schor points to the TV show “Friends” as a great example of this;xii young urbanites who
are often unemployed yet seem to be able to live in enormous apartments and enjoy
levels of consumption only possible in fiction. We no longer seek to keep up with our
neighbors; we now seek to catch up to those above us in the socioeconomic hierarchy.

Veblen goes on to hypothesize that it is entirely conceivable that all the needs for
subsistence and survival or of physical comfort could be met at a point far before
reaching efficiency in industrial production. It is because we do not care to merely meet
our needs, but to “struggle…for reputability on the basis of an invidious comparison”xiii
that we feel this urgency for increased production and consumption. Wealth is linked to
status and reputability. Our identities as humans of value have become intertwined,
almost interchangeable with our pecuniary prowess. More powerful members of
primitive societies capitalized on the productive work of their slaves and women. They
themselves were exempt from employment in productive work, and also become the
primary beneficiaries of productive work. Instead of working to produce these individuals
engaged in occupations that showed predatory prowess. For Veblen this all occurs in
predatory stages of barbarian culture. In these cultures it was leisure time that was
valued, and the upper classes displayed their leisure time through the development of
higher tastes for better food, and higher quality goods. As civilizations progressed open
predation is no longer acceptable and wealth replaces predation as the means to

6. acquire status. In earlier stages of civilization there are clear distinctions between
classes. However, as private property develops and there is free movement between
classes the old basis for pecuniary emulation no longer applies. When upward mobility
was nearly impossible the class directly above one’s own class was the basis for
emulation, but when there are no clear distinctions and it seems that we are all free to
procure ourselves a place in the highest of classes our basis for emulation becomes the
highest attainable level of consumption. Also, as society broadens and leisure time is no
longer an easily observable marker of social standing we turn less to leisure time and
more towards consumption for our invidious comparisons.

Now not only is consumption climbing steadily upward, but it is the sole basis for
comparison. Another explanation for the fall of leisure as a display of social status
comes with the commodification of time in capitalist society. Time, specifically leisure
time, bears a cost to us, and as it is less visible than consumption our preferences shift
toward a higher valuation of consumption. Veblen also addresses the schism between
leisure and an “instinct of workmanship”xiv that holds contempt for idle pursuits and “self-
complacency,”xv meaning that the predatory strength shown by leisure is devalued by
human instincts prompting productive use of time. We use consumption to “makes us
feel superior to, our fellows,” so our consumption must display our pecuniary strength.
Our consumption must carry a level of visible waste, the ability to consume past mere
subsistence levels displays pecuniary strength, so more waste the better.

7. This explains why there is a constant movement upward. Thorstein Veblen equates
consumption patterns to the formation of habits. For Veblen the accepted standard of
living is merely the set of habits that a person has become acquainted with.xvi These
habits are easily formed, consumption easily adjusts upward in response to any
increase in income, but the regression to a lower consumption level is much harder, and
the reaction to decreases in income do no always correspond so easily to decreases in
consumption patterns. The tendency for consumption to rise easily and fall with difficulty
as is true with habit formation is compounded by the nature of our habits to be formed
by invidious comparisons.xvii What we want becomes what we need then new wants are
added. Veblen rejects the notion that accumulation of wealth was ever prompted by the
needs of survival. These needs can be met without amassed riches, instead it was the
“invidious distinction attached to wealth,”xviii the ability for pecuniary acquisitions to carry
insults to those who posses less that prompted our desire for wealth.

It is important to note that these comparisons are not limited to the individual level, but
also saturate the behaviors of a society on the whole. The consumption imperative has
become a social norm, and failure to conform to an acceptable degree is punished by
“disesteem and ostracism.”xix The consumption imperative of modern capitalism is
strictly enforced. When the current recession was becoming evident we heard from
economists to politicians that shopping and consumption not provided happiness, but it
patriotic as well. The idea is that increasing consumption might be able to overcome
slackening investments and poor corporate performance that we now know to be the
result of deliberate thievery by corporate officers in many cases. The social norms that

8. compel us to conform to the consumption imperative are also enforced through
advertising and the creation of needs.

Economists have largely ignored need creation and advertising assuming instead that
preferences are exogenous, and they fall from the sky or are provided by god (or
nature, same thing pretty much). However, need creation and overcoming consumer
saturation point is not lost on corporations and advertising. Brand names and labels
associate products with emotional fulfillment and social status, and they are
outrageously successful. Juliet Schor cites a British study where children were able to
associate socioeconomic status to people they saw in a video.xx These children also
associated richer people with higher levels of intelligence, success, education and
control.xxi Advertisers often target children because they are more impressionable, and
this ensures that the consumption fetish will live one. In fact there is time pressure on
advertisers to “own, brand or capture kids before they’re 18, [or] they probably won’t
ever own, brand or capture them.”xxii In their pursuits advertisers spent nearly about
$117.47 billion in 2002.xxiii Apparently, preferences cost $117.47 billion dollars to pull
down from the sky. Increasingly advertising does not just affect a single intended target
group. Advertisers cannot easily sell a BMW exclusively to rich people, and as a
consequence even those unintended viewers are subject to the desires created by
certain ads. These advertisements enforce and perpetuate the ratcheting up of desires
described as a social phenomenon by Veblen.

9. The resulting social phenomenon is often referred to appropriately as the rat race. Our
consumption patterns reflect back on us, and as we seek to improve our positions in
relation to constantly elevated reference groups we become like rats running on a
wheel. In such a state, consumption not only fails to create happiness, our perpetually
increasing desires actually breed dissatisfaction.xxiv We spend to our limits and still want
more, people feel “poor on $600,000 a year.”xxv We feel poor, we accumulate debts, but
still we exhaust ourselves in this pursuit of more stuff. The happiness gained is not
absolute but relative, and as such, when other people meet our relative increases, our
relative happiness fades away to nothing, our reference groups are once again elevated
and in the end no one is any happier than they were many cycles ago. Fred Hirsch calls
these goods “positional goods.”xxvi These goods are characterized by “social scarcity”
meaning that scarcity arises not from physical constraints limiting ability to produce, but
social constraints of availability. Similar to Veblen, Hirsch says that such goods do not
carry absolute value but only value in that they put the consumer of the good or service
ahead of others, in a more desirable position. The problem with positional goods is
congestion. The use of such goods or services by more and more people decreases the
relative value of your use of the same goods and services until the relative happiness
gained is approximately equal to the absolute happiness gained, this point being zero
happiness gained. Applied to consumption generally, this explains dissatisfaction.

Dissatisfaction is a real problem for people. One obvious result is shoplifting and theft.
This is often seen as an act of desperation only the poor would stoop to, but
increasingly we see the wealthy taking part as well. Recently, Winona Ryder was

10. arrested and convicted of shoplifting clothes, several years ago multi-platinum rap star
Ole Dirty Bastard was arrested on shoplifting charges. Schor writes about a wealthy
dentist who had hired a man to steal $250,000 worth of designer apparel.xxvii In poor
neighborhoods social problems created by dissatisfaction are even greater. Serious
social ills develop such as drug trafficking and working by youth as their grades in
school fall cause other problems that ripple through and work against their chances of
lifting themselves out of poverty.

Extended to society and the economy more generally, the consumption imperative and
the identity-consumption link are married to a production imperative. Consumption and
production feed each other; there is a chicken-egg dilemma, but the result is the same
regardless of which comes first in the line of causality. We need to consume more in
order to absorb the production of more, but we need to produce more in order to keep
consuming more. This positive feedback loop is the essence of the threat to society and
the environment posed by the consumption imperative. The factories that turn out all the
goods we consume cause pollution and resource depletion, and the process of
consumption itself is creates waste and pollution. To consume more we work more to
earn more; Schor calls this loop, the “insidious cycle of work spend.”xxviii This cycle
wears us out and can be strongly linked to the breakdown of social relations, solidarity
and family cohesion.

An alternative to a work spend cycle may be to use productivity gains and increased
efficiency for increased leisure time. Europeans have enjoyed similar gains in

11. productivity and as a result they have increased social services and decreased work
hours; Americans have steadily increased work hours over the last 2 decades at
least.xxix Americans now work about 500 hours more than the average European, that’s
twelve and a half weeks.xxx We are working more despite a doubling of American GDP
since 1972.xxxi This trend seems to show no sign of reversing in the near future, but
once Americans too pushed for shorter working hours with the 30-hour workweek push
back in the 1930’s.xxxii

We must change our priorities if we wish to provide a livable world for future
generations. The consumption imperative is mainly a problem in industrialized nations,
however the same invidious comparisons can be made by nations in developing stages
right now. In fact many nations do, and the result is rainforest depletion in South
America, overfishing, unsustainable agricultural practices, and other irresponsible
development programs. If we allow this to continue 20% of the world’s population may
be environmental refugees by the year 2020.xxxiii

Schor describes a growing number of people who are voluntary “downshifters.”xxxiv
These people are characterized by a voluntary and radical change in lifestyle.
Downshifters make less money and spend less money, and the lion’s share of these
people are happy about the change they made. These people were dissatisfied with
their lives, their values and actions did not match; they became overwhelmed with debt.
For these and a variety of reasons, this growing segment of the population voted with
their feet and exited the rat race. The most often cited goals were “more time, less

12. stress, and more balance in life.”xxxv We must learn from these people and reconsider
our priorities, we must all reject the consumption imperative and rediscover sources of
happiness that lie outside of the markets and the economic sphere.

13. Eric Lin
Honors 499P
Chapter 2

The Historical Roots of Insatiable Human Consumption

More is better, preferences are exogenous and desires are insatiable. Modern
economic theory describes humans as insatiable consumers who derive happiness from
consumption. The insatiable nature of desires is a cornerstone of neoclassical
economics. The importance of this assumption to the sustainability of life on earth
cannot be understated, and it is taken as a given in most modern discussions on the
demand side of economic activity. In order to achieve a sustainable approach to
economics in an increasingly globalized world - where the consequences of our
decisions ripple through more rapidly and affect more people - we must understand that
insatiable consumption desires were culturally learned; humans have not always been
driven by individual gain.
Humans were not always insatiable. There is a consumption imperative that ties our
identities and the actualization of our latent potential to be more with pecuniary
acquisition. In fact, the liberation of all humans to pursue this consumption imperative is
extremely new relative to the length of time humans spent in socially constrained
economic systems. In order to pull our current consumption and growth drives back
from unsustainable economic activities to more sustainable and attainable goals we
must unlearn the lessons taught to us with the emergence of capitalist free market
systems after the fall of European feudalism. This is not an apocalyptic Malthusian
tirade on the inevitable demise of human life; Malthus could not foresee the incredible

14. resilience of humans to invest in technology that could provide for all their needs.
However our consumption, especially in advanced industrialized nations go far beyond
subsistence, consumer products may quite possibly be impossible to accurately count.
Most of these products do not actually contribute to sustaining life in anyway what so
ever, for example slap bracelets that were the big trend in my grade school years, the
plastic miniature airplanes you attach to your car’s A/C vents who’s propellers spin
when you turn on the air powering a mini turbine that makes LED’s blink. These are
extreme examples, and I’m not arguing that small plastic decorations threaten the world,
but most of the consumption in much of the industrialized world is frivolous. Examined
on an individual level arguments can be made for the utility gains of almost any
purchase, it is the macroeconomic effects that are more relevant to this examination of
our current economic situation. It is the aggregate of all our consumption that poses a
threat to our continued existence.
Capitalism demands growth and it is this growth that concerns the unsustainable path of
our current economic activity. Seeking growth – growth of national income, growth in
efficiency, growth of the “size of the pie” – drives capitalism’s ability to survive by
creating the means to provide individual gains for everyone in society. This is the basis
for Adam Smith’s argument for the Wealth of Nation, that the markets will be able to
provide wealth to all in society and that brings wealth to the nation. In order to continue
growing, consumers must be made to have insatiable desires;xxxvi if demand does not
have an insatiable nature society cannot continue to produce. Production cannot stop if
the population is to continue receiving the means to procure their standards of living, but
production will not continue unless capitalists are sure they will receive economic gains,

15. profits, from their activities. The incentives are purely economic. This is the distinction
Polanyi makes, that the great transformation of society was the separation of the
economic sphere of society out of the social, political and cultural spheres of society,
and its subsequent dictation over the other aspects of society. This transformation
occurred with the emergence of market systems in the organization of the economy. It is
a market system that creates a social institution capable of performing one purpose
only, namely the self-regulating market’s task of organizing the economic aspects of
society. To better understand the implications involved we must develop the history
behind this transformation and how it has taught human societies to pursue economic
motives for individualized gains.
Hominids first emerged some 5 to 8 million years ago. These primitive humans lived in
nomadic communities relying mostly on hunting and gathering to meet their biological
subsistence needs. There is no doubt that the earliest hominid communities had no
grasp of economics or the possibility of markets. The community together gathered and
hunted collectively and each shared in the product of the collective labor. The share of
each member of the community does not need to be equal or fair for the focus to be on
the survival of the group. Early hominids did not conceptualize themselves as insatiable
consumers if they were able to conceptualize much about themselves at all. All aspects
of what we may classify in the realm of economics now, was for these early humans
indiscernible from other aspects of society.
Eventually these primitive societies found themselves unable to survive solely on what
was provided for them in nature. Other animals begin to die as carrying capacity is
reached until a state of equilibrium is worked out between the animals’ population and

16. the ability for nature to secure their existence. Faced with Malthusian population growth
problems early humans developed settled agricultural communities rather than simply
dying out. This resulted in the agricultural revolution of the Neolithic period roughly
10,000 years ago. Along with agriculture, culture became more complex and the social
relations that governed primitive human societies began to emerge. Among these
cultural, political relations, the necessity for economic relations develops.
Karl Polanyi distinguishes three primary organizations of economics in early human
societies: reciprocity, a system of exchange and distribution based on giving,
redistribution, a system of distribution that collectivizes then distributes in some fashion
whatever is produced, and householding, a system of self-contained production for the
household primarily composed of family members.xxxvii These systems do not
necessarily work mutually exclusive of one another. Polanyi describes Ancient Greece
and Rome, for example, as primarily householding in organization, though some things
took on aspects of redistribution, particularly grains. Likewise Ancient Egyptian society
worked primarily on redistribution but elements of householding and reciprocity need not
be completely absent. Just as societies can be organized on a composite of economic
systems, with one system more of an accessory to others, so also markets can exist in
societies without society organizing under a market system. These three economic
systems share in common a focus on the community at large. The focus is on social
motives rather than individual motives for economic gain. No system, it is likely, ever
worked to bring perfect equality and fairness. It is almost certain that none of these
primitive systems ever fit Marx’s utopian description of advanced communism where
each member of the community would work “each according to his ability, to each [take

17. only] according to his needs!”xxxviii This, of course is not the point, there will always be
some that wish to be better off than their fellows; the point here is that any motives for
gain and consumption are constrained. It is idiotic to attempt to prove that humans do
not have desires and wants in excess of their needs.xxxix However, these desires are not
necessarily insatiable and unrestrained, historically they have almost always been
constrained by social, cultural and political institutions.
Each system required different social institutions in order to work. Reciprocity required
symmetry, a counterpart for exchange. In societies where reciprocity took primacy in
economic organization exchanges would take the form of gifts. These gifts would be
given without immediate compensation, but taken on a large enough scale the needs of
the community were met by a network of symbiotic relationships. Redistribution required
a centralization of collection that administered the distribution. The incentive for
production ranged from maintaining or elevating social standing determined by how
much you contributed to the cache to be redistributed, or through a mandate ordered by
the central authority. Householding required the existence of autarchy for the
household; self-sufficiency of the householding community allowed for production to be
performed and needs to be met from within the household. Likewise the incentives to
produce would be social in nature in a householding society. The common thread
connecting these different forms of embedded economic systems is the focus for
economic activity was on the community rather than the individual.xl

The outstanding discovery of recent historical and anthropological research is that
man’s economy, as a rule, is submerged in his social relationships. He does not act as

18. to safeguard his individual interest in the possession of material goods; he acts so as to
safeguard his social standing, his social claims, his social assets. He values material
goods only in so far as they serve this end.xli

This blatantly contradicts the assumptions about the nature of modern economic
man, and his motives for action. None of Polanyi’s three organizations of society
created social institutions solely purposed for economic activity. Centralization,
symmetry and autarchy are characteristic of the societies and not distinct institutions.
Only the market system has created a social institution solely purposed for economic
activity, the self-regulating market. This distinction is important. Market systems create
self-regulating markets that lie outside of other social elements of society, and these
markets are reliant on individuals working to achieve individual private gains. No other
system attempts to organize society for motives of gain.
The root of the word economics comes from the Greek word oikonomike, which
refers to the management of the household. Aristotle is the first great thinker of
importance that addresses economic issues. Aristotle lived in a Greek civilization that
saw some thriving from trade, and others living off of the surplus produced by the
masses. It would be impossible to say Ancient Greeks did not seek personal gains on
some level, but the number of people able to pursue motives for gain were few relative
to the masses that lived in embedded householding economies with some redistribution
of grains and perhaps some other necessities. Also, these aristocrats had obligations to
the rest of society. Aristotle recognized that “the avarice of humans is insatiable.”xlii
However, Aristotle also recognized that happiness couldn’t be achieved when the end

19. sought is more. There is always the potential for more so establishing gain as the
primary goal of life can only lead to perpetual dissatisfaction. Instead Aristotle
advocated happiness through leading a virtuous life.xliii . “For Aristotle, humans would be
best served by practicing moderation, good habits, and making good and right choices
in their daily lives. Such a view made happiness seem simple, satiable, and
achievable.”xliv Although some sought personal gains, there was still an understanding
that the individual exists as a part of a larger social structure.xlv For Aristotle, the
fundamental social entity is the family; likewise, he saw a state and a society built on the
communal model of a family.xlvi He saw the ideal organization of society with respect to
property, the means through which accumulation of wealth occurs, in allowing for
private ownership but requiring communal use of property. (Property meaning anything
owned: land, tools, and other things owned) Aristotle saw this as promoting community
and benevolence more effectively than strictly communal ownership since a type of
reciprocated sacrifice was made among members of a community when sharing rights
of use to private property. This mechanism would also ensure incentives to work since
families would be in theory managing their own personal affairs, not communal affairs
that present problems of diffusion of responsibility.
This relates to insatiability because it provides a theoretical precedent of a use
for private property that is not intended solely for individual gain. Further, private
property would be used to increase community solidarity, and to create benevolent and
generous people, putting them on the road of virtue, not of insatiable self-interest. For
Aristotle the role of the state was to facilitate this organic extension of the family into
society in general. The focus was on maintaining the societal order and protecting

20. solidarity in the community. There is no mention that men should be self-interested and
insatiable consumers.
Aristotle’s position was echoed in Ancient Rome by stoicism, which promoted
leading a simple life of modesty and self-restraint. There was again a contingent of
Roman civilization, Epicureans, that sought excesses in accumulation of wealth and
consumption, but as these were not commercial societies, expansion took on a political
rather than economic nature. All economic activity was still essentially subordinate to
the political institutions. Conquered territories fell under the power of the Roman
Empire, but they still remained agricultural and mostly autarchic householding
economies.xlvii Even if all Romans were free to pursue self-interested motives, gains
were impossible in the redistributive Roman economy. Wealth was accumulated by
some through conquest and redistribution of the wealth of the conquered. Gains were
only possible for some by the loss of others. However, this was not the point of Roman
expansion. Pax Romana was the creed driving most of the early and most significant
expansions. This mentality was also political in nature imposing peace by making the
world Roman.xlviii There is no imperative here expressing beliefs that the point of life is
the insatiable pursuit of self-improvement for everyone.
In Rome and even more in Feudal Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, the
Church strongly influenced politics. Two prominent thinkers tied to the Roman Catholic
Church, St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, followed a line of thinking that borrowed
heavily from Aristotle. These two only differed from Aristotelian thought significantly in
replacing general pursuit of virtue with a life lived for God. They too focused on
controlling the base human impulses of human greed, and for gratification of bodily

21. desires. They explained that it is in the exercise of self-restraint that humans truly use
freedom to accept the possibility for more but remain sated all the same with the
fulfillment of basic bodily needs for survival. After the fall of Rome, the Church
consolidated control over the state and imposed a type of ecclesiastical dominance of
society; while politically the ensuing anarchy begins to order into what we now know as
European feudalism. It is during the beginning of the end of European feudalism that we
hear from Thomas Hobbes.
Hobbes, writing in the mid 1600’s, introduces a rift in social thinking; it is here
that the unit of analysis begins to shift. Aristotle saw the state as the extension of family
units, and that the household was the essential unit to consider in social analysis.
Individuals were merely parts of the social whole, each occupying their role in the
makeup of the social fabric. Hobbes contrasts this with his vision of the great Leviathan,
a state that is made of the summation of individuals. “For by art is created that great
LEVIATHAN called a COMMON-WEALTH, or STATE, (in latine CIVITAS) which is but
an Artificiall man; though of greater stature and strength than the Naturall [man] . . .”xlix
This ideological shift parallels a shift in social practice. Hobbes was preceded by the
enclosure movement in England. Enclosures were an improvement for the English
economy, but with improvement driven by individual motives for gain come social
dislocations.
Polanyi describes the enclosure movement as “upsetting the social order,
breaking down ancient law and custom . . . They [the lords and nobles] were literally
robbing the poor of their share in the common, tearing down the houses which, by the
hitherto unbreakable force of custom, the poor had long regarded as theirs and their

22. heirs’.”l Hobbes saw this and understood that this produces struggles, when social
dislocation breaks down the social relationships tying individuals together as a
community, even as unequals in that community, conflict arises. Humans are competing
with one another to survive. This conflict will be never-ending and results in a “condition
which is called Warre; and such a warre as is of every man against every man.”li This
nature conquest takes on three primary characteristics: gain or conquest; security, to
defend what is gained and conquered; and reputation, “for trifles, as a word, for
smiles.”lii If these forces were left unrestrained there would be no end to war, no end to
conquest. Hobbes’ solution was the intervention of a strong monarchy reestablishing the
hierarchical organization of society. A system of complex covenants and contracts
would act to constrain this propensity for war; essentially Hobbes prescribed a return
towards a more embedded economic arrangement.
John Locke agreed with Hobbes’ assessment of human nature and its
tendencies toward conflict, however he saw natural rights of all humans to life, liberty
and property.liii Locke also saw a natural law that prompted men to consider one
another in their decisions that would act to curb their aggressive tendencies. For Locke
the role of the state is to secure these rights regardless of whether or not individuals
acknowledge them. Locke argued that so long as the state secured a state of equality
there would be no need to conquer one another, the threat of having nothing is removed
so there is no need for conflict in order to secure property (being the primary means for
survival).liv The motive for glory can now be checked by the removal of rights to security.
This argument ties social dislocation and the absence of security to a key driver behind
insatiable desires for more. When social restraints are removed from the economic

23. system security is no longer ensured through social relations between men. Humans
will then seek to secure their survival by struggling against one another to acquire
security on their own power. Individual gain is tied to a lack security, we desire security
and without a provision of security by society we seek for individual gain to provide
security. As there is always the risk of losing out we will never seek for contentment and
Aristotle’s modest life of virtue, instead we will constantly strive towards more as a way
to further secure our survival.
It is this competition and individualism that capitalism builds upon. Adam Smith
sees men as self-interested, acquisitive, and aggressive by nature. Smith provides a
theoretical framework for the structure of the emerging market economy. Polanyi traces
the final blow to traditional embedded economies with the Industrial Revolution. The
enclosure movement begins to disrupt the fabric of the ancient social order, but the
reaction to this dislocation manifested in the Poor Laws of England providing an income
for everyone still makes one last feeble attempt at softening the blow. As this legislative
system is slowly dismantled a true market economy begins to emerge.
The market system is dramatically different from ancient embedded economies.
Essentially the market economy requires self-regulating markets to exist. These differ
from the social institutions facilitating embedded systems since the market is not a
social institution. There is no social purpose of self-regulating markets, and there is no
social control over self-regulating markets. Replacing social motivations is the motive of
pecuniary gain. Polanyi attributes the emergence of the market system with the
Industrial Revolution because of the nature of mechanized production in factories.
Machines are expensive and factories constitute a significant risk to establish. In order

24. to make such a production process feasible outputs must be readily consumed and
inputs must be easily obtained. Unlike socially embedded economies – where
production took place in households or communities and markets merely enabled the
exchange of what is produced – market economies require that all aspects of the
economy be channeled through various markets. These markets must include a market
for raw materials and land – nature - and a market for labor power - people. Market
economies then reduce both nature and people to commodities to be bought and sold.
Ideologically, Smith represents the final break from tradition. Smith rejects the notion
that greed is bad, that self-interest and focus on individual gain needs to be controlled.
In the Wealth of Nations, Smith argues that the human desire for self-improvement can
be productive if it is only channeled correctly. Markets, Smith argued, allow humans to
act for their own self-interest and will result in the best possible outcome for society in
spite of the greed of selfish individuals as if guided by “an invisible hand.” Capitalism
took the competition Hobbes said would destroy us all and said that in a market it would
save us.
Capitalism is built on competition and individualism. In a market system, production only
occurs if profit is expected. “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or
the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We
address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of
our own necessities but of their advantages.”lv Social obligations and security cease to
exist. Insecurity becomes the driving force behind all economic activity, and all
economic activity in society gravitates toward the markets. This is a revolutionary idea
that completely transforms the conditions of human existence. Security is removed but

25. in exchange for our security all humans now have unlimited freedom to pursue the self-
improvement that was limited to the upper class under all of the old systems.
Under capitalism we see the birth of a strong middle class. The market system is
a success in this sense; it has the potential to create wealth and opportunity in an
unprecedented magnitude. However, since it was the economic system that enabled
upward mobility, upward mobility was seen to come from economic gain, and everyone
wanted more. Materialism and consumerism are the children of capitalism. The
American dream was built on this principle, the get rich quick ideology lured wave after
wave of immigration to the Land of Opportunity. “Bring me your tired, your poor, your
huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” The freedom we offered those huddled
masses was the freedom that capitalism gives, the freedom to realize human potential
in the form of economic gains.
Insatiable desires for consumption were taught to us through social dislocation.
Nature and humans are not commodities to be bought and sold like cars rolling off the
production line. The precarious position in which both humans and nature find
themselves in market economies drives capitalist competition. The focus of motives on
the individual in capitalist free-market systems pushes humans to disregard each other
in a race for the top. The limitless nature of human potential to be more was not always
linked to a limitless quest for humans to have more. Aristotle and the socially embedded
economies of our past show us the separation between identity and consumption.
Social motives served humans for millions of years to effectively drive production.
These social motives also restrained our drives for acquisition; the emergence of market
systems commodifies both humans and nature. Humans and nature no longer exist as

26. organic parts of a social whole; rather they exist as individual units together making up
an economy. Before we can hope to live sustainable lives, we must understand that
humans learned to be insatiable consumers. Other organizations of society, including
economy as a part of society, are possible. The course of human history shows us that
market systems populated by insatiable consumers motivated by self-interest and gain
are extremely young and do not reflect the eternal nature of all humankind.

27. Eric Lin
499P
Chapter 3

Insatiable Human Consumption:
On a Fragile & Finite Earth


Environmental degradation as a result of human activity is overdetermined1 by
innumerable factors both economic and non-economic in nature. To examine all the
factors contributing to environmental degradation would be to allow any analysis to fall
into incoherency, and any composite theory risks being viewed as an accurate picture of
the whole when it only stresses some factors while intentionally or inadvertently
neglecting others. The purpose of this work is to examine one specific grouping of
elements, the insatiable nature of human desires for consumption of goods and
services, and its contribution to environmental degradation caused by human activity.
Consumption takes on various characteristics derived from various motives, but it
is specifically overconsumption2 and insatiable human desires that becomes the entry
point for this theoretical analysis. Insatiable desire for individualized gain has not been a
constant universal characteristic of human consumption throughout human history. The

1 the term overdetermined is borrowed from Resnick and Wolff meaning that innumerable outside
influences all determine an outcome, one cannot by isolated as more or less important to an overall
outcome as each occupies a place as both cause and as effect in the social totality. Though the social
totality is overdetermined and this is easily seen, less easily seen is that since overdeterminism says that
each entity play a role in shaping each other entity each entity itself is also overdetermined. However
theory, lest it fall into incoherency must isolate one or a few factors out of the social totality for analysis,
however it must be always noted that each entity and the whole social totality is in overdetermined. 2 As an interesting side note, the word overconsumption appears as a spelling error on this word
processor.

28. socially embedded economies of our past show us that we have lived in other ways for
the lion’s share of our existence. However, insatiable consumption and its big brother in
the macroeconomic sphere, continual economic growth of output and productive
capabilities, have become the integral keystones on which much of conventional
modern economic theory rests. These two create a feedback loop, a symbiotic
relationship that makes it impossible to separate cause and effect. You cannot talk
about consumption’s roles in fueling production without in the same breath mentioning
the ways in which production drives consumption. Though there is no separating cause
and effect, there is also no chicken and egg dilemma here. There is no question that
we, as all beasts and other living things, have consumed at some point without first
producing. Our prehistoric ancestors, no doubt, once ate from trees or bushes or wild
crops without first transforming nature from resource to raw material to various
intermediate products to finished goods just as all other living things consume from the
earth in raw, natural symbiosis with some ecosystem. As production is a relatively new
phenomenon, emerging in various forms some 7,000 to 20,000 years ago3 and
mechanized production and industrialization only several hundred years ago, it is safe
to assume that consumption is the more universal of the two.4 As the more universal
element of the consumption-production relationship, I have chosen to focus on
consumption and specifically, insatiable consumption as the primary object of my
analysis. There are other reasons beyond consumption’s universality for this decision.

3 This is new relative to the millions of years hominids have existed. 4 It is extremely important to note that the more universal nature of consumption to living existence on
earth does not mean that consumption is more or less important to any part of the processes and entities
in this analysis. At the present level of industrial economic activity it is widely understood that indeed
production directly causes more harm in various measurements of environmental degradation than
consumption. The more universal nature of consumption simply means just that, consumption is a more
universal process in living existence on planet earth.

29. One reason being that all of humanity engages in consumption regularly if not daily, if
not hourly, if not - as with many in the most advanced of the industrialized nations – at
any given moment at any point in any day. All of humanity does not directly engage in
the transformation of resource to finished good regularly, some may never directly
contribute to production. Another reason is the individualized psychological nature of
insatiable consumption. Insatiable desire for individualized gain or utility through never-
ending consumption of goods and services takes on a very specific psychological,
ethical, moral, and belief centered nature. I cannot argue that there is no belief system
or ethical and theoretical framework behind the perpetual growth and expansion of
production; however it is the nature of the psychology involved that matters here. The
motives for production (measured as output given by GDP or per capita GDP) and
growth in production are justified and built on values held by society at large, singular
individuals typically have very little influence on these (thought many notable exceptions
exist). The individualized nature of the psychology of consumption is much more
personal and we, as singular individuals, have much more control over these typically
(although, again many notable exception exist).5 Likewise, isolated, singular humans
have more control over their consumption than over the production and output of their
city, state or nation.
It is undeniable that both production and consumption cause environmental
degradation. Both contribute to the rampant overexploitation of environmental sinks by
producing irresponsible amounts of waste and pollution. Production is solely responsible

5 I do not want to say that these individual motives for consumption and these social motives for
consumption exist in different worlds. Again motives for each are overdetermined, however the personal
focus that characterizes consumption motives more than production growth motives gives people reading
this and other related works more control over changing the world by changing first their world.

30. for the direct production of radioactive wastes trapped in mountain vaults, infinity rooms
and other temporary containment vessels almost certain to expire before the tens of
thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of years necessary for the material inside
to become safe again. While, most of the world’s gasoline emissions come from
passenger cars, and most from the US, which is a form of consumption. However, it is
mostly the production side of the consumption-production relationship that overburdens
environmental sources. Almost everything we consume now first passes through some
stage of production so resource depletion is more the direct result of production than of
consumption.
The key to understanding this is to understand that production does not always manifest
itself in growth for growth’s sake. Even the most invested growth economists would
justify growth and expansion of output as good for society because of various goals or
needs that this growth helps to meet. Increasing GDP increases per capita income if
population remains constant or grows at a slower rate - ignoring the neglect of
distribution – the goal then becomes welfare. Growth leads to full employment –
ignoring the obviousness of the modern financial and economic systems’ allergies to full
employment – there is an attainable goal here. Growth leads to capital accumulation
and subsequent increases of productivity. Growth and increasing per capita income,
according to Grossman and Krueger (1995)lvi, could most likely lead to an increase but
ultimate decrease in environmental degradation.6 What these and other goals of

6 I purposely do not get into the problems of the Grossman Krueger (1995) “Environmental Kuznet’s
Curve” here, it is simply to prove the point that growth in output is explained through some concrete
attainable goals.

31. production and output growth share is the possibility for attainment of a goal given
acceptable limits.
Herman Daly, in his work Toward a Steady State Economy, criticizes socialism to
be as obsessed with “growthmania” as capitalism. This is largely true, however, just as
with capitalist growthmania, socialism sees growth as leading toward an attainable goal,
most notably, growth as a way to unleash the forces of production in order that society
can organize itself according to the maxim, “to each according to his ability, to each
according to his needs.”lvii In all cases expansion of production serves to meet
attainable goals that potentially meet an end. The particular goal of production to meet
consumption demands creates production goals that are dependent on an assumption
that human consumption desires are infinite.
It is unfortunate that consumption does not seek to serve attainable goals. There
are obvious connections between consumption and certain measures of human well-
being that are in nature satiable. Consumption for biological subsistence for example, or
consumption of medical technologies for better health both have the potential of being
easily satiated. However the insatiable nature of consumption in general is tied to an
assumption about human nature. This assumption is that consumption leads to human
happiness, utility, and therefore more is always better. The end sought by consumption
is simply more consumption. There is no satiable goal here. No limits or boundaries.
This does not need to continue; there is no proper grounding to this assumption about
the insatiable nature of human consumption. Socially constrained economies focused
on social goals rather than generalized motives for individualized gain have been
characteristic of the large majority of human history. Luckily we now have a chance to

32. return to those roots in satiable and attainable consumption goals such as those
described by Aristotle and others if only humanity is given the language with which to
see the present contradiction in which it finds itself.
The contradiction is that on one hand humanity sees the environmental
degradation it causes through economic activity becoming more and more apparent.
We accept a certain level of degradation as a cost in providing utility through
consumption. On the other hand the aggregate desire for consumption being insatiable
by definition cannot really bring absolute increases in happiness beyond a point much
lower than perhaps expected, but only deepens our dissatisfaction at what we cannot
have.lviii Stated again we destroy our home planet in order to be perpetually dissatisfied.
The situation is compounded when we come to understand the socialized burden of
externalities that are completely ignored or simply unknowable in the assessment of
costs incurred by environmental degradation causing costs to be almost always
understated.

Imagine a dinner party where you, upon seeing the food at the buffet,
immediately claim and horde half of the food for yourself. Your desires triggered by your
innate selfish insatiability causes you to take half of the food leaving the rest of the
dinner guests to fight over the remaining half. In this case you cannot even enjoy the
food you claimed as your consumption is constrained by your limited stomach capacity.
After gorging yourself on roasted BBQ chicken and garlic mashed potatoes, you can
only covetously eyeball the steaks and desserts left in your cache. You become
dissatisfied, you are too full to eat the rest but your selfish and insatiable nature cause

33. you to stuff yourself to the point of pain. Even though you are in pain you somehow
come out enjoying net benefits. The pain caused by your gluttonous attack on the food
does not cancel out the epicurean delight experienced in consuming. While you sit back
enjoying your net benefits the other dinner guests now bear net costs; the hunger pains
in their stomachs outweighs the satisfaction from eating steamed vegetables and bread.
In fact, the dinner party is ultimately a net loss as the net costs of the hungry dinner
guests is greater than your net benefit. How you were able to impose those costs on
your dinner guests can vary, maybe you had a gun, maybe rules of the party said that
no one can take from someone else and you just happened to be first in line. Market
economists would argue that this scenario is preposterous; the price of food would have
become impossibly expensive long before you were able to appropriate all that food.
There may be no free lunches, but this food was freely given. Just as nature is freely
given to us the food was free, and by virtue of being an invited dinner guest you were
able to take without paying. There was no auction, no price set on the food, it was
given. This is not implausible because land, air, water, minerals, and all other natural
resources are not initially auctioned off or priced for sale. In the first instance nature,
God(s), mother earth, galactic evolution or whatever you wish to substitute allowed the
use of anything present for no charge that can be regulated in any type of market. In the
first instance it is power or some type of claim to ownership that characterizes the
exchange, Proudhon would go as far as to say that any property claims are in fact theft
– that what is given by nature is possession for use, rights of occupation, but any claims
to ownership, that is domain, with the rights to exclusion lead to the ultimate inefficiency
and theft.lix

34. This is how insatiable desires lead to unsustainable drains on the earth’s natural
resources. There are a number of parallels to be drawn from the dinner party example.
Perhaps most obviously is inequality and poverty that has been shown to lead to
feelings of desperation that drive us to irreparably harm the environment despite
adequate knowledge of the consequences for our actions. On the flipside,
overconsumption leads to wasted use of resources when the diminishing marginal
return is factored in. The party could have yielded high net benefits to all had you not
been so hasty and selfish in your initial consumption. Perhaps less obvious is the effect
that our overconsumption has on future generations. Considering the other dinner
guests as our unborn generations, and the “you” to be extended to “us,” if the game was
repeated and we always chose first there is a possibility that the other dinner guests
could starve. As our constant dissatisfaction bred by insatiable consumption desires
seeks fulfillment in activities that only seek to increase the “size of the pie,” our “pie” is
only a share of the total pie of limited available resources. As we horde our share we
make less and less available to generations to come.
Another deficiency of the current economic assessments is a neglect of costs.
Economic activity is only measured by indices reflecting money transaction in the
market. Our assessment sees the costs and benefits, actions and reactions of human
activity, in a relatively closed system. There is production and consumption and in
between lies all of economic activity. The reality is that the economic sphere of
existence exists as an open system inside of a physical system that is also open but
limited by the laws of thermodynamics and constraints of natural ecosystems. As
humanity engages in economic activity, inputs come from nature (energy and raw

35. materials) and outputs are returned to nature (air and water pollution, solid wastes,
waste heat, and so on). Nature itself receives input from solar energy but much of the
remainder exists in a closed system. The only consideration of costs is the cost of
resource extraction and the costs associated with transporting and storing solid wastes.
Virtually non-existent in mainstream economic analyses are considerations of the costs
of irreversible environmental degradation from resource depletion and overburdening
environmental sinks well past their capacity to absorb and neutralize pollutants.
Economists may try to argue that extraction costs are an accurate reflection of
depletion. As a resource becomes more and more scarce it will also become more and
more difficult to extract leading to a shift upward in the supply curve and an elevation of
prices. They would be wrong. If this assessment were true than would the falling price of
oil represent a rising stock of oil? The question is, of course, rhetorical and illustrates
the complexity of market prices; scarcity and the quantity of supply are not the only
determinants of supply side effects on price. With respect to oil prices, demand has
increased exponentially while supply can only fall. By market logic the supply and
demand curves would shift upwards pushing up price at dizzying speeds placing oil
prices well above any reasonable ability to buy. What reality has shown us is really the
opposite effect in oil prices. With some volatility, oil prices have steadily fallen since the
oil shock of the 70’s. This is largely due to an increase in the effectiveness of
technology’s ability to extract oil. We are living in a market economy that rewards us for
becoming more adept at depleting the stock of an unrenewable7 natural energy source
that is also the primary contributor to numerous forms of air pollution.

7 Side note: unrenewable is also a spelling error here.

36. Economists might argue the other side, that as sinks become overburdened the rising
costs of pollution will somehow be reflected in the market via prices. It is plausible that
as water becomes a scarce resource industry may be influenced to clean up production
methods, but following market logic, hopes for pollution clean-up seem distant. As costs
for pollution clean-up and pollution controls rise, there may even be a backward
movement along the demand curve as supply shifts up effectively decreasing the
amount of clean-up and pollution controls society chooses to implement.
It is more than likely that modern economic theory as it currently exists is simply unable
to adequately address the ecological crisis facing humanity and life in general on planet
Earth. Economic theory must then be augmented, retrofitted with new vocabulary and
adequate language with which to better understand and address the mounting
environmental crisis. A growing number of theorists have begun to take up the
challenge.
Herman Daly seeks to reintroduce an idea that has existed at the fringes of economic
thought since the beginnings. In Daly’s work, Toward a Steady State Economy, Daly
refers to ideas laid out by John Stuart Mill in the 19th century.
“But in contemplating any progressive movement, not in its nature unlimited, the mind is
not satisfied with merely tracing the laws of its movement; it cannot but ask the further
question, to what goal? . . . I know not why it should be a matter of congratulation that
persons who are already richer than anyone needs to be, should have doubled their
means of consuming things which give little or no pleasure except as representative of
wealth . . . I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will be content to be
stationary, long before necessity compels them to it. ”lx

37. In Mill’s words Daly finds a foundation for discussion. It is quite evident that economics
has not taken Mill’s words to heart. We do not seek “to be stationary” at all, in fact the
growth paradigm and the consumption imperative are largely responsible for driving all
of our economic activity. We feel it a matter of great congratulation that a rich man gets
even richer, our discontent is only that he is richer than we are. Daly seeks to temper
these motives by asking the provocative question: “A steady state economy fits easily
into the paradigm of physical science and biology – the earth is a steady state open
system, as are all organisms. Why not our economy also, at least in its physical
dimensions of bodies and artifacts?”lxi Daly advocates a point of view that synthesizes
the schism between ecology and economics, that as “the earth is a steady state open
system . . . Why not our economy as well?” To do this Daly argues that we must bring
resources (stock) and capacity (flows) into this steady state paradigm. This constant
stock and flow would be accomplished by having inflows equal outflows. Any death
would equate to a birth, any resources would not be used until an equivalent unit is
ready to replace it. More than maintaining constant stock and flow of natural resources,
Daly also argues for minimizing throughput leading to higher durability. The argument
goes, if a low birth rate or production rate is required to maintain constant stock this
means that life rate and durability of goods is high. This differs drastically from the
current practice of firms to build in planned obsolescence to any product in order to
cause higher turnover rates of use and increase consumption to boost profit margins
and GDP.
There is also a redistributive aspect to Daly’s theory. To increase human well-
being a level of income and resource redistribution should occur to maximize total

38. welfare according to the law of diminishing marginal utility which tells us that income to
rich peoples provides little happiness and would be better used to increase the relatively
high marginal utility of poorer peoples. Income distribution is also an element of James
Boyce’s theory one aspect of which calls for investing in human capital.lxii By increasing
income equality we also effectively change the balance of power, power being very
closely correlated to income. By promoting a more equal distribution of income we
promote the ability for the poor to assert their desires for pollution controls and give
them resources that provide more security and encourages more responsible use of the
limited resources available on Earth. There is no doubt that there must be a shift in
economic mentality preceding any redistributive programs. As long as the insatiable
desires of human consumption are enforced by economic theory the focus will not easily
shift from “the goal of ‘redistribution with growth’ [which only means] an effort to secure
a more equitable distribution of new increments to national income, [to] a redistribution
of the existing pie.” If there is no shift from insatiable consumption to consumption with
attainable satiable goals then there is no incentive to cut off the enjoyment of marginally
small and socially relative increases in utility from consumption of the rich in favor of
marginally larger and more absolute increases in utility from consumption by the poor.
As Boyce postulates the connection of income and power this also means that without a
shift in the economic growth paradigm, there is insufficient motives for the to stop
consuming despite environmental degradation as they receive a larger share of the
benefits through higher profit rates and cheap consumer goods, and they are able to
displace environmental costs onto the poor.lxiii

39. An alternative to insatiability then must be made apparent in economic literature.
There is no knowledge a priori of human nature. There are no assumptions about
human nature that can exist outside of synthetic judgments based on experience. This
experience tells us that humanity has existed and can exist again as satiable
consumers focused not primarily on utility that is derived from consumption. Aristotle
prescribed the search for human happiness through the living of a virtuous life.lxiv Karl
Polanyi describes in his work, The Great Transformation, socially embedded economies
focused on social welfare and not on individual pecuniary gains.lxv Likewise, E.F.
Schumacher describes “Buddhist Economics” that focus on enhancing the spirit of man.
A system of economic beliefs built on sacred ideals seeing “the essence of civilization
not in a multiplication of wants but in the purification of human character… formed
primarily by a man’s work.”lxvi Schumacher describes a form of economic theory that
links material necessities to moral values and metaphysical ideals.
While the Materialist is mainly interested in goods, the Buddhist is mainly interested in
liberation. But Buddhism is ‘The Middle Way’ and therefore in no way antagonistic to
physical well-being. It is not wealth that stands in the way of liberation but the
attachment to wealth; not the enjoyment of pleasurable things but the craving for
them.lxvii
There is a strong rationale here that is fully applicable to modern economic thought. It is
entirely reasonable, in fact it makes almost perfect economic sense that we should seek
to maximize our total human well-being at a minimum level of consumption.lxviii But to do
this, we first need to force economic theory to understand once again that human well-
being can always increase, and the potential for happiness may never find limits,

40. however humans do not only receive happiness from consumption. In fact, much of our
happiness comes from outside of consumption. The relative happiness gained from
competitive consumption is of a social nature, the happiness is derived from
relationships with others. Given the falling marginal increase to happiness from
consumption, humanity must find limits to consumption that fall within the given physical
constraints of natural resources and universal entropy laws while increasing happiness
in other ways. Humanity is not so different from other elements of our natural
ecosystems, we do not alone have a nature that compels us to consume insatiably. The
environmental degradation that follows from our false perception of out nature can no
longer be ignored. So, as humanity faces the ecological crisis before us and the
contradictions of a market economy driven by insatiable consumption desires and a
growth imperative, we must recognize the alternatives and seek a sustainable,
attainable and satiable happiness not solely reliant on our consumption of goods and
services.

41. i Juliet Schor, The Overworked American (New York: Basic Books, 1992) 107.
ii Juliet Schor, The Overspent American (New York: Basic Books, 1998) 19.
iii Schor, Overworked 115,
Fred Hirsch, The Social Limits to Growth (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1976) 111-112.
iv Stuart Oskamp, “Psychological Contrabutions to Achieving an Ecologically Sustainable Future for
Humanity,” Journal of Social Issues 56.3 (2000): 373-381
v Robert W. Kates, “Population and Consumption,” Environment 42.3 (2000): 10
vi Oskamp 373.
vii Ibid
viiiJohn Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1958) 151.
ix For Veblen waste as it relates to consumption is anything consumption decision made on the basis of
an invidious pecuniary comparison, essentially, anything that does not hold an intrinsic value to the
maintenance of life. It is admitted that any consumption bestows some utility to the consumer so it is not
useless, yet still wasteful, as it does not directly add to the value of human life.
x Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: Penguin Books, 1994) 111.
xi Schor, Overspent 4.
xii Ibid
xiii Veblen 32.
xiv Veblen 93.
xv Ibid
xvi Veblen 104.
xvii Veblen 26.
xviii Ibid
xix Veblen 111.
xx Schor, Overspent 36
xxi Ibid

42. xxii John DeGraaf, “Deluth Speech,” 7.
xxiii “Ad Spending Growth in 2002,” eMarketer™ The E-Business Research Source, 18 March
2003,
[http://www.emarketer.com/news/article.php?1002120&PHPSESSID=5490d3c2a6f85d2555ec0d532b812
124#article] (22 March 2003).
xxiv Schor, Overworked 116.
xxv Ibid
xxvi Fred Hirsch, Social Limits to Growth.
xxvii Schor, Overspent 40.
xxviii Schor, Overworked chapter 5.
xxix Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein and Heather Boushey, The State of Working America (Ithaca, New
York: ILR Press, 2003) 422-425
xxx John DeGraaf, David Wann, and Thomas H. Naylor, Affluenza (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler
Publishers, 2002) 217.
xxxi DeGraaf, speech 2.
xxxii Schor, Overworked 74-76.
xxxiii Oskamp 373
xxxiv Schor, Overspent 113-172.
xxxv Ibid

43. xxxvi Smith assumes we already have insatiable desires, but Smith did not invent capitalism of market
systems, he merely organized a structured theory with which to understand forces that had been recently
unleashed on the world. These forces led to development of insatiable consumption desires for all, but
again this is cultural learned.
xxxvii Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, (Beacon Hill, Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1957) chapters 3-4
xxxviii Karl Marx, “Critique of the Gotha Program,” The Marx–Engels Reader, (New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, 1978) 531
xxxix Needs of course also contain a social aspect, standard of living includes not only biological needs for
the continuation of life, but also of consumption that fills social needs to meet expectations and
obligations. These are not disputed either, merely the point is to illuminate the satiable nature of desires,
and social constraints placed on desires until only very recently in the course of human history.
xlPolanyi chapters 3-5
xliPolanyi 46
xliiDoug Brown, Insatiable is not Sustainable (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers 2002) 34
xliii Brown 41-46
xliv Ibid
xlv Mark Perlman and Charles R. McCann Jr., The Pillars of Economic Understanding: Ideas and
Traditions (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1998) 14.
This contrasts with the contemporary view, which stands it on its head saying that the social structure is a
derivative of a sum of individuals
xlvi ibid
xlvii Brown 47
xlviii Ibid
xlix Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme, & Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and
Civill (NYC: Penguin Books, 1985) 81.
l Polanyi 55

44. li Hobbes, 185
lii Ramon M. Lemos, Hobbes and Locke: Power and Consent, (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press,
1978) 20
liii Lemos 85.
liv Lemos 87
lv Adam Smith, Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book I, (Edinburgh: Mundell, Doig, and
Stevenson, 1809), 19.
lvi Gene M. Grossman and Alan B. Krueger, “Economic Growth and the Environment,” Quarterly Journal
of Economics May 1995; 110(2): 353-77
lvii Karl Marx, “The critique of the Gotha Programme,” The Marx-Engels Reader 2nd Ed., (New York: W. W.
Norton and Company, 1978) 531.
lviii Juliet Schor, The Overworked American, (New York City: Basic Books 1992) 115.
lix Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: translated and edited by Donald R. Kelley and Bonnie G. Smith, What is
Property, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993)
lx John Stuart Mill as quoted by Daly, p.12
lxi Daly p.7
lxii James K. Boyce, The Political Economy of the Environment, (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar
Publishing, 2002) chapters 3 & 4
lxiii Boyce p.6
lxiv Doug Brown, Insatiable is not Sustainable (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers 2002)
lxv Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, (Beacon Hill, Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1957)
lxvi E.F. Schumacher, “Buddhist Economics,” Toward a Steady State Economy by Herman Daly, (San
Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1973) 233
lxvii Schumacher 235
lxviii Ibid