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Time is not money
The Finnish radio in Swedish language has a very nice radio show about sustainability issues, called Smältpunkt (melting point) I warmly reccomend it for anyone who understands Swedish.
In the last broadcast, a young woman named Lotta Nummelin, who had tried not to consume anything during a whole year, was interviewed. She had not found it very hard. Consumerism is rightly identified as the main culprit behind the running ecological crisis. The problems we are facing, climate change and other things, are due not so much to an increasing population or poor western customers choosing the wrong products as rich customers consuming way too much of everything.
While correct, the radio show was also very naive in its focus on individual actions. Just imagine that non-consumerism became a major movement and that consumption in Europe fell with 50% ... For sure most of us can do away with half of the things we buy each year.
By definition, that would result in drastically sinking GDP numbers, and a horrible financial and political chaos. No thinking politicians would go down that road. The management of our societies is dependent on constantly rising GDP numbers - even talk of a few quarters of recession send shivers down our spines. But when we finally get our act together and start caring in stead of consuming, that might look like a recession in the economists' books.
I remember life in 1989, when Swedens per capita GDP was 24,575 USD, roughly half of today's. It is not like we are twice as rich now... the only tangible difference is the spread of the internet. If we could have 1989's GDP, but internet also we would be very well off.
This is where I stop and seriosly say to myself - "Daniel, you are oversimplifying, again. After a fall with 50% in GDP, Sweden would not look like in 1989. It would be chaos - gang warfare, starvation, beggars, what not...". Which is exactly my point. The GDP numbers do not reveal anything about reality. Nothing else than the fact that we are prisoners in a consumerist rat race that we have not found a way to stop without hurting ourselves.
In school we often laughed about primitive cultures where wealth was measured in the number of sheep a farmer possesed. I am sure they would laugh about us if they knew that we think that we are richer now than 20 years ago, just because we have borrowed more money from the bank...
Lotta Nummelin in the Finnish radio said something really insightful - Why is it that when we think of luxury, we think of something that is expensive? Why do we consider a Rolex watch a sweet sinful luxury, but not a well cooked dinner eaten with friends, or simply taking a day off?
Our consumerist society has another odd obsession - to do everything as soon as possible. Translate that to your own world... does a meal tast better if it was cooked faster? No. Was a kiss better if it lasted shorter? Certainly not. So why are we constantly in a rush?
Our obsession with speed is maybe the second biggest climate problem next to our consumerism. In several posts on this forum the future of flight transports have been discussed. But I think we all know that flying will continue, as long as there is not a quicker way to transport people over large distances.
Personally I would love to take the train to far away destinations, and I have done so. But for that you need a lot of time. Time that has to be taken from your holidays that you want to spend with family and friends. Business travel by train is no alternative, since no boss in the world would give you two days to travel to Paris if you can do it in one day.
And we understand our boss of course... because in reality we all believe that "time is money". Would we also believe if someone told us that "milk is money"? Is that a more or less reasonable statement? At least the exchange rate for milk and money is the same at all hours of the day, which the exchange rate for time and money is not.
We do not need to stop consuming. What we need is to stop seeing consumption as the meaning of life. We might need to stop flying, but we do not need to stop travelling. We just need to learn to take some time.
Comments
Think of our grandparents, they have much of the same furniture today that had when our parents where in our age. It would have been better for the GDP if they had changed furniture every ten years or so, but they would certainly not have been richer. I think that’s the key: we need stop consuming, and start to invest instead. Yesterday I ordered a repair stand for bicycles: an investment.
Very good point. I guess it depends on how you define “consuming”, but at the bottom line, we need to buy less stuff.
Today I heard the CEO of Intel, I think, speaking with the Guardian Tech that they tried to convince companies that they should keep buying new computers during the crisis, otherwise the maintanence costs were higher… that is either a bad PR lie from Intel, or a very sad sign of how the world is working.
I guess you have lowered the maintanence costs for your bike, though
Very nice post Daniel. I think the pressure this pressure, lying on us, that makes us rotate through our lifes is not a voluntary one though. In a lot of episodes in my life I felt constantly pressured by deadlines and work. Why? Because i want a degree! Why? Because without degree it will be more difficult to make a good living or to do a job I like.
It is as if you have to choose…Live calmly in porverty or in a rush with money…This is probably also oversimplyfied and for sure does not go for several individuals in this world. but I have the impression that it often behaves like that.
@David, you are right… It is not easy to choose to live calmer. I myself don’t live as I teach. I didn’t wish to lay the burden on individuals, even though I think all of us can change some things in our own life.
What I mean is rather that society should be organised in a way where this was a possible, and easy choice. That would be so much better for everyone.
I agree that we need to consume less, but as you say it is very unlikely that people will cut their buying in half. What is more crucial is that people consume differently - i.e. greener, more sustainable products. There needs to be more investment in that area so that consumers have the choice made easier for them.
@Jodi, thanks for your comment, I think we agree in general terms, but I would rather focus on ‘consuming less’, than ‘consuming green’.
The difference is superficial, though. What we do need is a change of thinking - the ability to see our consumption in a perspective of finite resources. We should not buy more than we need, but what we need to buy should be ecological, of course.
My point here was rather - is our society prepared for customers who don’t need more than they need? I don’t think so, which is a very fundamental problem that blocks serious efforts at changing our lifestyle.
The choice should be as easy as possible for consumers, and I think we can not put the entire responsibility on them. As it is not, higher prices makes ecological something of a luxury for well off consumers, while we allow traditional farming to waste the earth’s resources, and unhealthy food being sold at a lower price.
The Slow Food movement used to have a campaign: In stead of marking ecological food “Eco”, we should not mark it at all. In stead other food should be clearly marked “Not Ecological”. I think this would be an interesting idea.
Interesting idea from the Slow Food movement. Personaly I think of conventional food as ‘not ecological’ when I see some food marked as “ecological”. But maybe I’m more binary than ordinary people.
@Jakob; Yep, me too. But I guiess this is because you (I suppose) and me are trying to buy their stuff ecologically. For most people I know the concept of “ecological” means in the first place “more expensive”. To lable food as “non ecological” might indeed be a good idea.
@ Daniel - don’t get me wrong, I definitely think we over-consume. No debate about that. Convincing people to consume less is definitely vital. But I think that in the mean time convincing consumers that buying sustainably, and convincing companies to produce products of that vein is also essential. I was reading an article on the topic yesterday - it’s an important part of the solution.
@Jakob, David, Jodi, thanks for really interesting comments!
@Jodi,I am sure we do agree
This post was about consuming less, but of course we should buy sustainable goods when we do consume.
I guess it is also a matter of which perspective we are discussing? In a five years perspective, I think increasing the market share of ecological goods compared to “standard” goods is maybe the most important. In a long time perspective, the ultimate goal is to decrease consumption as such.
I’m a fictional character, an author who has created another fictional character. Also, I was created by a fictional character.
I’m an unforgiving realist when it comes to world politics.
You will do anything necessary to make sure your children are left better off than you. That’s about as longsighted as humans are going to get, one generation.
Knowing that, certainly, can put you on a level playing field with politicians who can only focus until the next term in office.
Drop the idealism and start using the leverage you have at your disposal to change the world.
@Norton. Yes… unfortunately I also think that politics are wayy too short ighted todeal with this problem.
The title of this post seems very sarcastic to me because since childhood all of us are tough that time is money.But yes! reading the entire post I agree with the writers’ point of view and feel that its really not compulsory to belief that time is money.
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