Raise the Hammer

I've often wondered if the competing interests of economic growth and sustainability could be reconciled by a consumer shift away from material consumption to that of services and human 'skill commodities' (for lack of a better term). What I mean is, instead of directing disposable income towards the accumulation of more stuff, bigger houses, etc, we might choose immaterial luxuries based on different types of human expertise, for example, dining, the arts, patronage of household services, recreational instruction, weekly shiatsu massage, whatever. I'm sure my rational isn't perfect (and I doubt this is a truly original idea), but it seems that this pattern of consumption would exact less of an environmental toll than the accumulation of material 'stuff' and offer the pleasant side benefit of increased demand for local human capital.
Thoughts?

I would recommend this chart (life of metal reserves at current consumption) http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/...

It treats everything as static, but gives a good idea of amount remaining at current usage levels.

My understanding is that the numbers are strictly total reported reserves divided by current rate of consumption. The inner (lower value) is the time left if the entire world consumed at half the rate of the US. I'm not sure what purpose of that figure is, but there it is.
The values on the right indicate the current amount of supply met by recovery/recycling. The graphic is a little cluttered and I dislike circular graphs in general, but the data is there.

Here's the link to the actual article. It is two years old... http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19...

I'm not sure that I buy that curve.

For example, my consumption of air follows a stepped curve, where under a certain consumption I get zero fulfillment, followed by a nice flat area of total fulfilment.

This curve may be true for beer and chocolate, but not doctor visits, poems, sunshine, smiles, leisure time, sex and many other consumables.

As more and more of our economy's production grows into intangible, non physical items, physical constraints diminish. I don't see the inevitability for humanity to stop programming computers, writing books, and shuffling papers. We will certainly reach the maximum utilization of physical resources eventually, but we will continue to grow forever.

Growth isn't a sin of humanity, it's the root motivator for all life.

"my consumption of air follows a stepped curve, where under a certain consumption I get zero fulfillment, followed by a nice flat area of total fulfilment."

Obviously you've never experienced hyperventilation...

Economists have long recognized that markets mature and eventually fall away. That is the basis for soap marketing. Soap is soap. It hasn't changed in hundreds of years. People buy a lot of it, but every new soap brand is advertised to sound like a new nirvana, cleaning and maintaining everything in the home without any work from the homeowner. Eventually this pitch wears thin and the market plateaus. That is when the soap becomes "new and improved," driving another round of marketing growth. Eventually these pitches too wear thin. Time to introduce a new brand. Mass advertising drives mass marketing.

What many media-savvy economists appear to have missed is that entire industries or even economies can plateau and go into decline, as the auto industry or even the entire mass-production economy appears to be doing right now. Perhaps it is because advertisers have long survived by dreaming up new pitches to stimulate buying. Perhaps it is because mass media are vital components of mass advertising and mass marketing which drives mass production and consumption.

But as the mass production of reliably durable goods improves, the decline of economies based upon manufacturing them is inevitabe. This is hastened by the apparent fact that rates of human reproduction fall as economies improve. The world's richest economies have long relied upon immigration for market growth as much as for cheap labour. Now it relies on foreign trade, and that will have the same limits.

Over a decade ago mass media were agog over demographics as the driver of economic growth, but you don't hear about it much now that Boomers, who have driven economic growth for decades, are entering retirement. Boomers have already bought tons of shit, and now need to downsize, but they do require services. They are part of the move back to urban centres where medical and other such entertaining services are close to hand. More importantly, Boomers are gradually giving up their cars, first reducing the numbers they own, then the size of the ones they drive. Eventually they will become passengers and inevitably not even that.

Not surprisingly, some parts of the economy are not in decline. They may be slowed somewhat, but thus far advanced, post-industrial communications businesses and services still seem to be doing reasonably well. Mr. Balsillie still seems to have the money to buy an NHL team. The problem is getting someone to sell him one. And despite the layoffs and downsizing in the manufacturing sector there is increasing demand for medical and educational services that governments are slow to fund as they hand out billions to declining manufacturers.

Mature economies become service economies. Manufacturing won't disappear of course, but it won't drive economies as it has. It is not a matter of choice, but if I were choosing a life-time career now, I'd become and stay educated in finding more and more ways to enhance the lives of my fellow citizens. Even a robot can wind a nut onto a bolt for less money than I'd want to do it.

Darren, I share the sentiment, but have to concur with WRCU2 on this: Eventually, if humans do not limit their reproduction to keep the earth's population static (or work to lower it), life will either cease to exist outright, or become, in Hobbes' words, "nasty, brutish and short".

I agree to some extent with the optimists as well, however: Resource shortage drives innovation, and, to the extent that the need for gainful employment encourages the maturation of the service sector in highly developed economies, one can perhaps foresee an ongoing improvement in standards of living as we all fall over backwards trying to better our fellow man's circumstances.

What I wonder is the following: When will the innovation curve plateau, owing to finite essential resources (ie. not metals, but food, oxygen, water), and how long will it take for us to shift our way of thinking to accommodate this?

Perpetual growth theories must eventually run into this problem.

HAAA writes:
"Growth isn't a sin of humanity, it's the root motivator for all life."

HAAA, unless you wanted to abstract the notion of "growth" to include growth in personal fulfillment, at which point the word becomes practically meaningless, there are plenty of human beings to whom your maxim does not apply - ie. those who choose not to have children or accrue material wealth, but who dedicate a large portion of their lives to improving human existence. The existence of people like these bodes well for an eventual (though hopefully not too distant) sea-change in our current fascination with growth. At any rate, it proves that your maxim is not by any means universal or inevitable.