Our economic woes.

“We have been convinced to spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need to impress people we don’t care about.”  This is the wonderful and concise sentence used by an English economist named Tim Jackson in his speech at TED conference in Oxford, England.  I watched it on my computer.  As much as I admire the sentence for its ability to sum up our economic problems, I worry about the main message in his presentation.  He believes that the very things we need to do in the short term will deteriorate the economy even further in the long term. It boils down to the end of consumerism – or at least the need for a major modification.  He says, as I’ve written, that our economic problems are structural, not cyclical as usual.  If they were cyclical we could just wait out the slump.  Not this time.  We must change the very economic structure that we created in the last sixty years.  We’ve been convinced to consume, consume, consume – or shop until you drop – if you prefer.  His point was that we can’t kick consumption of the same products and services into high gear.  If we do, we’ll run the planet out of resources by consuming stuff we all seem to think that we can’t live without.

In fifty years we will grow from 6 billion to 9 billion people on a planet that can support 1 billion people and stay healthy.  The problem is infinite growth on a planet with finite renewable resources.

His solution is that we need to reassess what it is that we need in order to live a good life while we have lots of neighbors who want the same thing. 

Here’s the trap in our current thinking.  It’s very subtle but bear with me.  So far we have depended on our cleverness and ingenuity to supply our insatiable appetite for consumer goods.  We’ve created new products from new raw materials.  We’ve invented new ways to use old raw materials.  We’ve enhanced productivity and found ways to make more out of less.  But we’re coming to a point of no return.  We will just have too many people on the planet to continue to consume as we have in the past sixty years.

So the answer can’t be more consumerism in the long term.  But it seems to be the only short term answer.  It’s what has been called a “catch 22” or a double-bind.  If we do what we need to do to save the economy, we will destroy the economy.

Unless we begin to re-invest some of the profits from commercial enterprise into renewing our limited resources we will run them out.  A new value proposition needs to be designed into any economic form going forward.  And it must include the reinvestment of some portion of our productivity into our planet.  I’m not referring to climate change.  I’m referring to the mathematical calculations that say we cannot continue to use the existing resources at our current level and spread it across fifty percent more people at the same relative rate.

So for those readers who see this as a partisan issue, wake up!  Whether you are a conservative or liberal, white, black, yellow or red, senior citizen or young millennial, business owner or worker, the math is indisputable.  We either figure out a way to restructure our economy or get used to the idea that it will eventually collapse of its own weight.

Consider these facts when you vote in November.  Ask yourself these questions; “does this person truly understand our circumstances?”  “Do his or her ideas offer solutions to our economic problems?”  “Or is he or she promising more of the same policies that brought us to the brink?”  Because, that’s where we stand today.

Robert DeFilippis