By Alex Bainbridge
Ron Guignard (GLW #270) takes issue with my argument that "a society free of the profit motive . . . can be built only on the basis of abundance of the things people consume" (from my critique of Ted Trainer's The Conserver Society, in GLW #262). He argues that such a society would use resources at an unsustainable rate.
In addition, Guignard raises three objections to the goal of abundance: added pollution, increased human excrement and insufficient water for a larger population. He puts forward a rough vision of a society where one third of basic needs is produced small-scale (à la Trainer), one third (housing) organised by cooperatives and one third by large-scale but localised production.
It is true that our society is overusing many non-renewable and even renewable resources. There are also many people in poor and rich countries who are going without things they need and want — clearly we don't have "abundance".
However, it does not follow that an abundant supply of basic consumer goods and services — even to a larger population — is unsustainable. Central to achieving sustainability is changing how we produce, not producing less in the same polluting ways.
Also, as I said in my first article, there is a lot of wasteful resource use under capitalism. This includes military expenditure, conspicuous consumption, unnecessary packaging, much advertising and planned obsolescence. Much of this can be cut very quickly without reducing at all the pool of goods and services available for people's consumption and would make a big difference to overall resource use.
More than this is required to achieve sustainability, however. Also necessary is the systematic conversion of industry to non-polluting technology and introduction of widespread recycling of outputs. (This would include recycling and productive use of human excrement as fertiliser — eliminating a serious waste problem as well as reliance on polluting chemical fertilisers.)
It is true that this will take time to implement. However, our society already possesses most of the technology required for such a conversion. The main obstacle is the absence of real decision-making power by the majority and a lack of political will among the current rulers.
While the matter should be decided democratically, any branch of industry that cannot be made sustainable should arguably be closed down completely and substitutes sought.
Happily, this is not going to deprive us of any major area of consumer goods and services. Trainer's detailed evidence is testimony to this.
My disagreement with Trainer (and possibly Guignard?) lies in his belief that this can occur successfully only in "largely self-sufficient" neighbourhoods. Sustainable production methods can be used on a large scale (e.g. permaculture in Cuba), at the same time making the gains from specialisation and division of labour.
Democratically planned, sustainable industry directed towards meeting people's needs (something very different to the industry we see around us now) would give people more leisure time. This would be a big improvement in most people's quality of life. It would also make possible the "rational abundance" which socialists consider so important.
The question then remains: even if industry is placed under democratic control, purged of polluting and wasteful production methods and directed towards social needs instead of corporate profit, will there be enough resources to supply goods and services in abundance?
Lets be clear on what abundance means. When socialists talk about abundance, we are not talking about Rolls-Royces, ocean-going yachts or gold-plated toilet seats. That is the consumerism of a profit-driven capitalism — continually anxious to convince people to consume things they don't need. What we are talking about is satisfying people's needs and wants.
It is true that resources are limited. It is also true (contrary to popular mythology) that there are limits to how much people can consume. This holds true not only for food. In any given period, there is a limit to how many movies you can see, clothes you can wear, kilometres of road you can travel, heart by-pass operations you can have, wardrobes you can store in your house.
We already have the means to provide more than enough of many consumer items — especially the most important. If our productive wealth were democratically owned and managed by society as a whole, then it would be possible to gradually supply a greater and greater number of goods and services free. Over time, and as the number of these items increased, there would be a profound change in people's psychology and a breaking down of the acquisitive traits fostered by capitalism.
Paradoxically, abundance will lead to reduced consumption of many items. For example, if "tool libraries" and/or well-supplied neighbourhood workshops were provided free (as Trainer recommends), many people might decide that they did not want their own personal tools.
Perhaps, then, a concept of "rational abundance" can be introduced. A community may decide, for example, to offer reliable and safe public transport for free but to charge for cars and petrol (except for those who needed the latter). There need not be a decline in access to transport, but there would be a big reduction in resource use.
One of the biggest concerns of both Guignard and Trainer is the forecast increase in population. Ignoring coercive and antisocial means of reducing population, the only means of solving this problem is to raise people's standard of living (including education). Thus, again, abundance appears as a solution to the problem of overuse of resources.
Finally, Guignard asks: "How are we going to change people's attitudes?" The answer is: abundance. Supplying as much as people need and want of basic consumer items is precisely how attitudes will be changed. That is the material precondition to breaking down the greedy and self-centred attitudes fostered by capitalism. It is because Trainer's "conserver society" lacks this, that it is bound to fail.